


you can hit it (the ball) in the morning, like it's yours

by frougge



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, Miscommunication, Not Actually Unrequited Feelings, Volleyball, everyones big dumb, gay rights babey!, haikyuu babey!, letterman jackets....letterman jackets, minho centric, seokjin is minho's older brother, surprisingly little actual volleyball playing for a volleyball fic, this is BIG on the vocal line + hyunho childhood friends agenda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-02-26 17:24:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18721585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frougge/pseuds/frougge
Summary: “—I mean, uh, you don’t have to check it out, if you don’t want to,” Jisung is saying, his hand on the back of his neck as he tries not to bend under the pressure of Minho’s gaze. “It’s just a suggestion, obviously if you’re not into anime or whatever you don’t have to, it’s fine, no pressure.”“Oh,” Minho manages, finally, and Jisung clamps his mouth shut, putting an end to his rambling. Minho’s trying very hard to think whether he’s ever said anything along the lines ofcishets deserve to be oppressedto Jisung, but he’s been spending too much time with Hyunjin to be able to say he definitely hasn’t. “It’s, uh, I’ll check it out.”(or, in which jisung has a terrible way with words and accidentally makes minho think he's straight.)





	you can hit it (the ball) in the morning, like it's yours

**Author's Note:**

> thank u emmie for the title and help w the plot + thank u cyano and kinnie for help as well ily 
> 
> okay some important things: 
> 
> \- minsung are both the biggest incels but we're going to pretend they're jocks for this one trust me on this  
> \- no one's actually straight id rather #die than write the strays as cishetties hell yeah babey  
> \- everyone's ages are fucked but what you need to know is: jeongin is in his freshman year, woojin + changbin are in their senior year, all the other strays are juniors and the others ages dont really matter so .  
> \- johnny is slammed here every so often but i dont actually hate him just kinda think he deserves to be oppressed every few days or smth  
> \- this is very vaguely set somewhere in the states for the whole letterman jacket and sports aesthetic but w poland based weather so like. make of that what u will
> 
> anyway there's also a playlist for this au [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/teacactus/playlist/3idTVHQBG08ONgTpbOumiZ?si=U6mrSJlqTtmaRA5mhroBGw)!!

The volleyball team loses their game on Wednesday.

It wouldn’t be that terrible if this wasn’t their second lost game in a row and if prelims weren’t underway, but. Minho tries to cheer himself up with the fact that they even did good in the very first set, though that falls through as soon as he remembers just how little morale they had left midway through the second half of the game, making their sets off-balanced, making their serves hit the net, making their passes lack speed and precision.

They have a name to uphold, after all, as the reigning champions of two years, now, and despite Jisung saying that winning’s not the most important, there’s an obvious want, an obvious need to defend their title. Minho can clearly see just how determined Jisung is during the game: his jaw is set, his eyes focused on the ball and the ball only, even as it hits the ground on their side of the court again and again and again, gaining the opposing team points again and again and again.

Still, he keeps on a smile even as Minho screws up his pass, even as Jeongguk has to strain in order to try and get the ball over the net, even as the middle blocker stretches just enough to send it spinning back, too fast for any of them to react, even as it grazes the ground of the court just before Yukhei has the chance to kick out his foot.

He keeps on a smile even as a whistle rings out over the court and slight disappointment lines his movements, even as the opposing captain comes up to shake hands with him and tease him, judging by the lilt of his voice, even as he gathers the team outside and tries not to let defeat seep deep into their bones.

It only kind of works.

“We’re just a bit out of sync as a team,” he says, once they all have clambered onto the bus, taking their respective seats and waiting for him to finish so they can all pass out. Well, most of them; Minho can see Johnny still sprawled out on the grass outside, though no one makes a move to get him. “We’ll practice harder and get better in no time, I’m sure.”

A series of groans sound throughout the bus at the prospect of more practice than they already have and Minho’d be inclined to agree, if not for the fact that he’s sure his inability to play cost them at least half of their potential points. Instead of voicing this, he drags his gaze from the window to Jisung, who’s pressing his lips into a thin line, clearly unsure of how to lift morale when everything he tries falls flat. He sends him a smile and Jisung grins right back, visibly relieved.

Minho pretends his heart doesn’t jump in his chest at that.

“Prelims are in a bit over a week,” Jisung continues, after the noise quiets down, as if everyone isn’t already painfully aware of that. He leans against an empty seat, silent as he organizes his thoughts. He’s a lot more serious than usually and it’s a bit worrying. “If we want to pass them and qualify for the semifinals, we really need to improve.”

“And we will!” Someone—Jeongguk—shouts from the back, unreasonably awake and energetic despite having collapsed onto the floor three seconds after the match ended. “Let’s get this win!”

“Whoo!” Jisung laughs, throwing his fist into the air, and the rest of the team mirrors him. The bus nearly shakes with their excitement, as they shout and express their unwarranted confidence in making it past the prelims.

Minho can’t get too into it, mostly because he’s not an uncultured swine who thrives on making unnecessary noise, but also because his head feels dizzy with the wide smile that adorns Jisung’s lips as he watches the team. He looks so proud, so immensely happy even though they lost, and Minho thinks he just wants to give him the world and see him smile like that more.

“Okay, okay, one last thing,” Jisung’s voice rings out over the rest of them, effectively silencing them. He sounds amused and mostly fond, his gaze soft as it skips over each and every member of the team. “We have practice for the rest of the week, obviously, and on Sunday we might be able to play a game against the girl’s volleyball team—though that one, we really can’t lose, considering Haseul _will_ clown me for it till the rest of time if we do.”

“Aren’t the girls better than us?”

“Yeah,” Yukhei says, “we’re going to get absolutely slammed.”

“Probably, if you keep that attitude,” Jisung says, though his tone is more lighthearted than anything. “Either way, it’s good practice.”

Murmured agreement rings out as Jisung’s impromptu speech comes to an end, mostly as a result of them needing to actually make it back before it gets too late. He makes his way around the bus, stopping by each of them, patting them on the shoulder and muttering words of encouragement until he finally slumps down into the seat next to Minho.

“You okay?” He asks, his voice much more wrecked with fatigue than it had been during his speech upfront. He’s still smiling, almost a bit wider than before.

“Just thought this game would go better, is all,” Minho says. The words bounce against his ears, making him sound pretentious and annoying in the same manner that Hyunjin always chastises him for, and so he quickly tacks on, “on my part, I mean.”

“You weren’t bad today,” Jisung says, frowning, and he sounds sincere enough that Minho’s sure he means it. “A good part of your passes landed perfectly and your serves were good, too. You’re still getting used to this, too. You can’t expect to ace every shot, especially considering you’ve only been on the volleyball team for a few months. You’ll get better though, I’m sure.”

“With practice,” Minho says, breaking into a smile when Jisung laughs. Jisung laughs and the sound fills his head, echoing in his mind. “It’s just—I don’t know. I thought I was getting better? And then during some games, like this one, I completely lose it. Go absolutely fucking bonkers. Can barely get one shot right, that sort of thing.”

“It’s just how it is,” Jisung says. He tilts his head to the side, his fingers tapping patterns across his knee, before he adds, “you know, if this is something you’d be into, we could, uh—I could help you practice? Just the two of us.”

Minho directs his gaze just to side of Jisung’s eyes, where light is bouncing off his hair, coloring it a nice, soft brown. His mouth feels dry, his head dizzy, his whole body full of nerves that are pooling in the bottom of his fingers, in the bottom of his feet, urging him to move, urging him to do something stupid like hold Jisung’s hand.

“Uh,” he says, biting back the smile that’s pulling on his lips. “Uh, sure, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Definitely not,” Jisung says smiling, much more brightly now, and Minho’s heart is bursting against the edges of his chest, because _God_. “I’d love to, really.”

“Me too,” Minho says, equally soft, before it becomes too much for him. “Especially since I hadn’t really practiced much outside of our team practices.”

“I mean, yeah,” Jisung says, nodding, his cheeks tinged slightly pink. “It can be hard to find the time—”

“—I don’t mean now,” Minho cuts in, “but, like, you know. Overall? I don’t really have much volleyball experience outside of this and the few weeks I spent preparing for the try-outs.”

“Oh,” Jisung says, his brows pulling together. “Really? I thought—hm. Why did you decide to try out for the volleyball team, then? Instead of the other ones?” He opens his mouth, closes it, shakes his head, “just, uh, curious? I think half of the team has been at this since their freshman year, and before that, too. I had been convinced you played somewhere outside of school.”

“No,” Minho says, giving a soft shake of his head. He twists the bottom of his jacket in his hands as he tries to figure out how to give his reasons for joining the team, without either sounding like an absolute loser or completely in love with Jisung. “Wanted to see if I could do it, I guess?”

“Not the worst reason, as far as they go.”

“And what’s yours?” He asks, surprised to see Jisung huff, near nervous laughter spilling out his lips. “It can’t be worse than mine.”

“It’s—okay,” Jisung says, laughter marking his every word. “I was a big fan of this one manga in middle school, about volleyball? And that kind of propelled my, my interest in the sport.”

Minho can’t bite back his smile. “Really? A manga? You mean to tell me you’re a whole weeb?”

“It’s really good!” Jisung protests, rolling his eyes. “And—oh, the fourth season of the anime’s about to be released soon, I think? It’s—I swear it’s really good! Stop rolling your eyes at me, you heathen. I’d offer to watch it with you, but I have to watch it with Haseul, and she’d break up with me if I cheated on her with that.”

Oh.

_Oh_.

Minho stares at him, missing a good half of whatever Jisung says next as his brain completely shuts down, unable to process his words.

“—I mean, uh, you don’t have to check it out, if you don’t want to,” Jisung is saying. “It’s just a suggestion, obviously if you’re not into anime or whatever you don’t have to, it’s fine, no pressure.”

“Oh,” Minho manages, finally, and Jisung clamps his mouth shut, putting an end to his rambling. Minho’s trying very hard to think whether he’s ever said anything along the lines of _cishets deserve to be oppressed_ to Jisung, but he’s been spending too much time with Hyunjin to be able to say he definitely hasn’t. “It’s, uh, I’ll check it out.”

Jisung beams at him, his smile wide, and Minho absolutely despises just how much his heart jumps at the sight.

“Okay!” Jisung says, either completely over Minho’s meltdown or, much more likely, just dropping the topic for the time being. Minho’s eternally grateful for that—or he will be, at least, when his head doesn’t feel like it’s been emptied and filled with an assortment of machinery, clinging around in his head and unsuccessfully trying to make any sort of sense. “Tell me how you like it, if you ever get into it, then.”

Minho nods half-heartedly, barely able to bring himself back to the conversation, his mind occupied with trying to analyze each and every one of their previous interactions to see just how much he embarrassed himself. “Yeah, yeah, okay,” he says, clears his throat. “Sorry, um, just a bit tired. Haha, uh. Yeah.”

“It’s good that we’re almost back, then,” Jisung says. His brows come together for a moment, a look of concern passing briefly over his face before he tilts his head to the side. His hand moves as if to touch Minho’s, but he holds it back. “We still have a bit of time, left, though, so you could try to get some rest, maybe?”

“Yeah,” Minho says, clears his throat again. “Yeah, um, I probably will.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Jisung says, and he’s smiling wide again and Minho’s heart jumps once, twice, thrice in his chest, before it’s squeezed between his ribs and stops, completely dry. Jisung’s hand comes down to pat Minho’s shoulder as he maneuvers himself out of his seat and Minho tries hard not to think about how many times he must have misinterpreted that, how many times he thought it must have been Jisung trying to flirt through unnecessary touches, how many times he himself mirrored the same action, in hopes of conveying his feelings.

How many times Jisung must have simply been trying to show his support in a completely platonic way, while he mistook it for flirting.

Minho forces up a smile at him, pressing his cheek against the window when he leaves, off to talk to Yukhei or Jeongguk or any of their other teammates.

This, he thinks as he stares out the window, is the single most humiliated he’s ever been. He lets his eyes fall closed against the harsh burn of the sun, trying not to think of every interaction between them that caused him to think there might have been something there. Every interaction that led him to believe that his feelings might be reciprocated.

He’s even been working up the nerve to ask Jisung out, because of all that, because of each of Jisung’s action that he’s misinterpreted. He’s glad he didn’t, though he can imagine the embarrassment if he had—can imagine the way Jisung would smile at him, maybe pat him on the back and call it a day. The way he’d say, almost pitifully, that he’s honored or that he’s touched but, no, he simply doesn’t swing that way.

Or that he has a girlfriend.

Minho sighs. He lays his hands flat against his thighs, ignoring the need to draw his knees up to his chest, to bury his face in them and never look up again. It’s not that bad, he reasons. There’s a lot of worse things that Jisung could be, really, and he’s still Minho’s friend.

He’s still Minho’s friend, even if he’s a straightie and deserves no rights by default.

.

“I’m never going to another volleyball game, ever,” Minho declares that same day, sprawled out on the carpet in Hyunjin’s living room. He’s been there for the past thirty minutes, lamenting his painful existence to Hyunjin, who just rolls his eyes, unimpressed.

“Why?” he asks, barely paying attention—not surprising, considering Minho does this at least once a week. “You fucked up a serve really badly and now no one will talk to you?”

“No.”

“You fucked up a set and now no one passes the ball to you?”

“No.”

“You—hm, no, okay, that’s about where my knowledge on volleyball ends,” Hyunjin says and at Minho’s groan, adds, “I’m too pretty for it, anyway, what did you expect?” He tucks his legs underneath himself, readjusting his form on the couch, before his eyes zero on Minho again. “Is this about the actual game, then? Oh, did you pull a muscle or something? That’s always exciting.”

“No, it’s not that,” Minho says and Hyunjin pouts, even as he leans forward to poke the side of Minho’s thigh, as if to test whether he’s telling the truth or not. All he gets in return is a glare, to which he only pouts more. “It’s, ugh, you know.”

“That jock you like—uh, Jisung?—rejected you or something?”

“Worse,” Minho says. Hyunjin shakes his head at him, waiting for a reply. “He’s straight.”

Hyunjin stares at him. Opens and closes his mouth, once, twice, but no words come out.

“Yeah,” Minho says, with a defeated huff, dragging his arm over his eyes for a moment. “Same, yeah. Yeah. Like…yeah.”

“What do you mean, he’s straight,” Hyunjin says, chewing on the inside of his cheek in thought. He sets his phone down and drags himself down from the couch onto the carpet, his face hovering over Minho’s, almost uncomfortably close. “Straight? Like, an actual, real life, cishet?”

“Yeah.”

“Ew,” Hyunjin says, scrunching up his nose as he leans back. “You’ve been flirting with a cishet—a _cishet_ —for the past months?”

“Hyunjin,” Minho says.

“Sorry,” Hyunjin says, his hand landing on Minho’s knee in an apology. “But wasn’t he like, into it? Or whatever? You said it seemed like he was into it.”

“That’s because it did,” Minho replies, pushing himself up on his elbows and staring up at the ceiling. He thinks back to every interaction, thinks to the way Jisung would smile at him, kind and genuine and soft enough that Minho thought it was reserved just for him. “I mean, I thought so. Obviously I wouldn’t have tried anything otherwise, considering straights are the scum of the earth.”

Hyunjin hums in response. “Maybe he was going for the overly supportive jock vibe,” he says, “which, you know, could be worse? He could be a homophobe.”

“Honestly, I’d rather he be a homophobe,” Minho says, and even as the words pass his mouth, he knows it’s not true. He can’t imagine a world in which Jisung doesn’t offer him a grin or doesn’t try to engage in conversation whenever he passes him in the hallway, in which Jisung ignores him when he comes to practice, in which Jisung despises him for simply existing.

He can’t imagine a world in which Jisung isn’t, at the very least, his friend.

“Sure,” Hyunjin says, though at least he doesn’t press. “I mean, it could have been worse.”

“How so?”

“He could have been a weeb,” Hyunjin says, stretching out his fingers and checking his nails off-handedly. At Minho’s lack of response, he widens his eyes. “Don’t tell me he’s a weeb, please don’t tell me he’s a weeb—”

“—he’s a weeb,” Minho says, and Hyunjin groans _so_ loudly, throwing himself face first onto the floor. Minho can make out some words as he mutters something into the carpet, though instead of trying to understand what Hyunjin’s saying, he half-heartedly kicks him, only managing to actually hit him once or twice. For a half-jock, he’s got terrible aim. “Grow up. He just likes anime.”

Hyunjin lifts his head, doing a very poor job at hiding the fact that he’s having the time of his life clowning Minho. “He just likes anime,” he repeats, trying to go for incredulous and landing at incredibly amused, giggles spilling out his mouth. “He’s a _cishet_ who likes anime. That’s literally the worst of the worst.”

“Noooo,” Minho whines, though that’s about as far as his list of counterarguments goes. “He’s not that bad.”

“Did you not hear me? He’s a cishettie who likes anime. A whole cishettie weeb and you’re trying to tell me he’s not that bad—”

“—Hyunjin, I will break your kneecaps, you absolute incel—”

“—okay, okay, I digress,” Hyunjin says, sobering up quickly, though not before he’s scrambled hurriedly onto his feet and away from Minho. “It could be worse, then. He could be, uh—well, he could be a homophobe.”

“Yeah,” Minho sighs, letting himself fall back onto the carpet. “This sucks.”

“No shit,” Hyunjin says, looking around the room. “It really does. I’m sure you’ll find someone who’s not a cishettie to pine over in no time, though, so don’t worry.”

Minho sighs in response, again.

“Maybe I could set you up,” Hyunjin muses, walking around the room. Before Minho has the chance to reply—to protest, really—he says, “aha! There you are. Come here, baby.”

Minho lifts up his head to see Hyunjin’s crouched down, holding a hand out, and watches as Kkami bounds over to him, looking way too excited. “Hyunjin,” he whines, “you’re supposed to listen to me vent, not go off to play with your dog.”

“I’m not going to spend all day listening to you bitch and moan, you Scorpio ass,” Hyunjin says, before making kissy faces at his dog, who, surprisingly, seems to become more and more excited with each one, her tail wagging impossibly fast. “Besides, I thought you could use a little puppy to help you cope with everything?”

“Oh,” Minho says, sitting up. He holds out his hands and accepts Kkami when Hyunjin passes her into his arms. He preens at the way her whole body wiggles in his arms as she tries to lick him, tilting out of the way even as he can’t help the smile that pulls at his lips.

Hyunjin watches Minho smother Kkami, letting himself collapse on the couch before he says, “seriously though, I could set you up? Or Woojin could introduce you to someone, considering he knows like, everyone. Or something. Get a rebound, babey.”

Minho ignores most of what Hyunjin says—as per usual—and instead replies, “y _ou_ know almost everyone.”

“Yeah, but if I were to set you up, you probably wouldn’t go and my reputation would be ruined,” Hyunjin says, before he sniffles, dragging his nose up in the air. “Besides, I already do my charity for you by letting you whine in the safety of my home for like, eighty hours each week.”

“Yeah, but you’re my friend,” Minho says, dragging his hand over Kkami’s fur. It’s soft and she wiggles her whole body in tune with the movement.

Hyunjin narrows his eyes at him, leaning forward on the couch. “Wait, do you actually want me to set you up? Because—“

“—I don’t,” Minho says, quickly, shaking his head because he can barely think of anything worse than Hyunjin setting him up.

“Mhm,” Hyunjin hums, sitting back. He looks a bit too satisfied and Minho doesn’t trust that, not one bit. “You don’t want Woojin, specifically, to set you up, then, is that it?”

It is, but Minho’s not really feeling like talking about how his close friend pulled the ultimate prank on him, especially when it hurt his feelings, which he likes to pretend he doesn’t have. “I just,” he scrunches his nose and Kkami paws at his sleeve, “I don’t trust Woojin, not after the shit he pulled.”

“Wait, what’d he do?” Hyunjin asks, “whatever he did, I’m sure it wasn’t intentional. He’s just—well, he’s an Aries, and you know, sometimes lets it get the best of him.”

“You call me the devil for being a Scorpio,” Minho points out.

“That’s because all Scorpios all the devil, we’ve been over this,” he says, waving a hand. “Come on, tell me what happened! Share the hot gossip, spill the tea, all that.”

“You’re the single most embarrassing person I’ve ever met,” Minho says, “but whatever, fine. Woojin didn’t tell me that I was pinning for a straight jock.” He drags his palm over Kkami’s head. She seems to enjoy the action, pushing her head into his hand when he stops. “A straight jock who has a girlfriend, sorry, almost forgot that crucial detail.”

Hyunjin puffs out his cheeks before exhaling, staring at the carpet. “Oh,” he says, finally. Then he frowns, his brows pulling together to form a crease between them. “Wait, Jisung has a girlfriend?”

“Yeah,” Minho says, trying not to sulk, even as he lets Kkami scramble out of his arms and run towards the little basket of toys, sticking her snout in it as she searches for a particular one. “He does.”

“Oh,” Hyunjin says, before he breaks out into smile. “Well, now you at least know he’s not an incel. Still a straightie weeb, but it definitely could have been worse. Now, at least, if anyone finds out, they won’t think you’re an absolute loser—hey!” Hyunjin successfully jumps out of the way just before Minho manages to catch his ankles; he had wanted to yank him down onto the carpet. “Please, please, I’m innocent, I’ve done literally nothing wrong my whole life. Stop trying to hurt me, you demon!”

“You’re insufferable,” Minho says, though he leans back with a huff, resting on his elbows.

“I’m not,” Hyunjin says, dropping to sit down on the carpet, cross-legged, once he’s decided the threat of Minho has passed. “Look, not to be serious or anything, but I’m sure it’ll be okay? Like, it’s embarrassing, sure, but you didn’t make that much of a fool of yourself. Not any more than usual, at least. You’ll be fine.”

“Thanks, Hyunjin,” Minho says, trying not to exhale heavily. He only half succeeds. “I appreciate it.”

.

“Hey, everything okay?” Woojin asks as soon as there’s a break in their student council meeting, his brows pulled together and his mouth tugged into a frown. He’s been looking like that at him sit the start of their meeting, evidently worried, and Minho almost feels bad.

He would feel bad, if not for the fact that Woojin’s the one who persuaded him to join the student council in the first place and if he hadn’t, Minho wouldn’t have to sit through these painfully boring meetings. He would feel bad, if not for the fact that Woojin’s the one who didn’t tell him Jisung was straight.

“You seem a bit out of it today.”

“Just don’t have any good ideas,” Minho says. That’s a lie; he’s been stewing over a slime themed prom for the past ten minutes and is convinced it’s better than anything the council could come up with. There’s also the always classic queer prom with a _no cishets allowed_ sign pinned to the doors or, his personal favorite, a cat themed prom.

He figures he’ll slip it in the anonymous suggestions box they have by the entrance or make Jeongguk do it, promising to pay him back with a coffee and muffin from the café Seokjin works at and never do it.

Either one works.

“Yeah, and that’s never stopped you before,” Woojin says. “What happened with being a united force against all the hetties here? You’re supposed to publicly slam Johnny after his every idea so I don’t have to act civil and pretend I like it.”

“You don’t have to act civil,” Minho says, off-handedly doodling in the margins of his nonexistent notes. He’s working on a portrait of Dori, though it looks more like a shapeless blob than anything else. “Just slam him. Or, better yet, kick him off the council. You’d be a hero in the eyes of us all, I’m sure.”

“I can’t do that, he was voted on here,” Woojin mumbles, letting his eyes close and rubbing his temples. “Beats me how that happened, considering I can think of at least ten other people who’d do a way better job.”

“He was the only one in the running, because everyone has something better to do than be the secretary,” Minho says, “really, you could just kick him off and get like, Sooyoung to join. That’d make these meetings maybe twice as interesting, which is saying a lot.”

“That’s borderline nepotism,” Woojin says, sighing. “I’ll think about it, though.”

“There you go,” Minho says, starting a new drawing of Dori. He tries to draw a circle for her head, though it comes out as more of an oval, and adds two little triangles for her ears.

Woojin watches as he draws the stripes, silent, before his patience runs out. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on or are you going to keep pretending it’s fine?”

“Nothing’s going on,” Minho says, adding in two dots for the eyes and drawing a little nose. Everything’s off-balanced and it looks like a very poor rendition of literally anything but Dori. “Just let me be, okay?”

“Did I do something?” Woojin says, frowning. He’s starting to sound confrontational and Minho’s about to roll his eyes. Maybe Hyunjin is right, with the way he worships astrology and believes it to be the only legitimate science. “I genuinely don’t remember doing anything to make you, you know, like this. And if it’s not me, why can’t you just tell me what happened?”

“Oh, no, don’t worry, it was definitely you,” Minho says and Woojin’s frown just deepens, his brows skewing down almost comically so. Minho concentrates on starting yet another drawing, foolishly hoping Woojin drops the topic.

He doesn’t, of course.

“Okay,” he says, after not even a minute. Minho groans, letting go of his pen, accepting both the fact that he’s not an artist and that he’ll have to talk about this with Woojin now, even though he’d much rather do literally anything else. Truth be told, he just wants the whole week to be over—it might be Friday, but everything seems to be dragging by awfully slowly. Not to mention he still has practice to go to, which he might skip, because he’s really not in the mood. “At least tell me what I did to make you so, so, ugh, you know. Like that.”

“We’re supposed to be thinking of prom themes,” Minho says as a last resort, though he can already tell it’s not going to work. Woojin’s jaw is set, his brows pulled together and his eyes trained on Minho and they both know he’s not going to drop it till he gets an answer.

“No one cares about the stupid prom themes,” Woojin says. When Minho doesn’t respond, he sighs. “Minho, come on. Stop acting like a child.”

Minho closes his eyes, inhales deeply, and looks up at the ceiling, gathering up all his patience and courage, before he says, “you let me think I had a chance with—with a _straightie._ ”

“What?” Woojin asks, narrowing his eyes. “What do you mean? Who’s straight?”

“Who’s straight,” Minho echoes, incredulous, all of his patience gone in a matter of seconds. Woojin can’t be serious. He sits back, frowning, wondering what he even did to deserve this. “Only, you know, the person I’ve been talking about for the past few months? Who I have, like, actual feelings for?”

Woojin blinks at him disbelievingly. A beat passes before he speaks, which only serves to agitate Minho more, making him fidget with his hands. “Minho, the only person you’ve only been talking about recently is Jisung—”

“—yeah!” Minho says, moments away from combusting, glad that the rest of the student council left the classroom for the short break. All the frustration, the embarrassment he’s felt with the recent revelation is pumped into his blood and _God,_ how can Woojin be this dense? “Why didn’t you tell me he’s straight?” Woojin squints at him, opens his mouth, but Minho’s not done. “That he’s straight _and_ in an actual relationship? Did you not think that maybe, maybe that’d be something I’d like to know?”

“Wait, you actually mean this?” Woojin asks and Minho’s ready to slam his own face against the desk. “Like, about Jisung?” Then, as if Minho’s the dense one, he specifies, “Han Jisung?”

“Yes, him!” He exclaims, throwing his hand up in frustration. “Him—and you knew this all this time, and didn’t even think to tell me once!”

“Who’s his girlfriend?” Woojin asks, cocking his head to the side in thought, almost unbothered by the conversation.

“Haseul—”

“—the, the girl’s volleyball team captain Haseul?” He says, frowning. “Like, that Haseul?”

“Yeah,” Minho nods furiously, “that Haseul. Why didn’t you—why didn’t you tell me she’s his girlfriend? God, can you imagine how, how embarrassing he finds me? How repulsive, probably, for everything?”

“He probably didn’t even notice,” Woojin says, “besides, he’s—you know, he’s a weeb. Bottom of the food chain. It’s physically impossible for him to find anyone repulsive.”

“Stop ignoring my main point,” Minho says, having to refrain himself from slumping in his chair and crossing his arms, in fear of looking like a five year old. He does it anyway, deciding he’s got no dignity left. “Why didn’t you tell me? It’s—didn’t you think it was something important to tell me, before I spent weeks like, fantasizing about getting together with him?”

He flushes the moment he says it, even though it is true. He spent more than one evening thinking about what it would be like to be with Jisung—still does, really, even though now it’s coated in a more melancholic mood than anything else. He thought about what it would be like to hold hands with him, their fingers softly intertwined, or what it would be like to go on dates to coffee shops or on walks to the park or anything, really, spending time together just for the sake of being together. What it would be like to twist his hands in his hair, to softly press kisses over his eyelids, over his cheeks, over his lips.

It’s all awfully affectionate, especially for him, but he can’t help it. He can’t help it but now he’s embarrassed of it, especially as Woojin just stares at him, silent.

“I didn’t know it was that serious,” he says, finally, his brows drawn together. He sounds more confused than anything and Minho’s mind spins on its axis as he settles back into his seat after his outburst, his emotions fizzling out into nothing.

Minho sighs, lays his fingers flat out on the desk, before he’s unable to resist tapping his nails against the wood. His ranting—venting, maybe—on what he thought at the time were requited feelings was mostly to Hyunjin, the only one of his immediate friends that didn’t—still doesn’t—personally know Jisung and the one he’s known the longest. He’s mentioned Jisung a few times in passing to the rest of them, but looking back on it, his feelings for him must have seemed more shallow than they actually are.

“It’s—not entirely your fault,” Minho says, after a moment, and Woojin looks slightly more puzzled. “You couldn’t have known.”

Woojin exhales, inhales loudly, looking up somewhere over Minho’s head. “Maybe,” he says, his lips still pulled into a frown. Minho doesn’t have the chance to press him for answers, as the break comes to an end and the rest of the student council members filter back into the room.

The whole topic of conversation, along with his own irritation and Woojin’s peculiar reaction, sinks into the depths of his mind when he has to listen to Johnny propose a wild western theme for prom and try not to strangle him.

.

“We’re on the volleyball team,” Jaehyun says, his mouth deep-set in a frown, as he stretches each leg, looking like he only vaguely knows what he’s doing. Minho figures he looks about the same. “The volleyball team,” he stresses, “I didn’t join to fucking run laps.”

Minho’s inclined to agree. He understands that their coach has slightly higher expectations for them—ones that don’t consist of them losing nearly half their practice games—but this seems a bit extreme, not to mention not beneficial for them in the slightest. Even Jisung looks slightly disgruntled, though he makes absolutely no move to stop their coach.

“Yeah, I can tell,” Yukhei says. “You’re absolutely terrible at stretching.”

“Shut up, loser, you’re not doing any better,” Jaehyun says, throwing his half-empty water bottle at him, scowling when it lands a few feet away from him. “God, this is so stupid.”

“Maybe there’s some reason for it?” Jeongguk tries.

“We’re supposed to be bonding,” Minho scoffs, trying to keep his teeth from clattering even though he’s freezing down to his bones. “Synchronizing as a team, whatever the fuck that means. What correlation does that even have with this?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jaehyun says, nodding wildly as he leans back, resting his palms against the grass. “Yeah, yeah, it’s absolute bullshit.”

“It’s only a few laps,” Johnny cuts in, only succeeding in getting Minho to despise him that much more.

Minho sighs loudly, his hand sliding down his leg as he tries to at least keep up the pretense of stretching. Yukhei catches his eyes and mouths _what the absolute fuck,_ looking as annoyed as Minho feels.

“Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be nice!” Jeongguk says, nearly bouncing in his place after he rises to his feet in one swift move, and Minho wants to throw up. “I’ll show you all how it’s done and then you’ll have to respect me as the icon I am for the rest of your life.”

“Whatever you say,” Jaehyun says, even as he grasps onto Jeongguk’s forearm and pulls himself onto his feet. He throws his arm around Jeongguk’s shoulders, sighing as he tucks him closer. “The least you could do is pretend you hate this, you know.”

“Stop acting like having to run some laps is the end of the world,” Johnny says, his brows raised as he looks over the rest of them, unimpressed. “It’s really not that bad.”

“We’re about to start,” Jisung cuts in, before Minho has the chance to do something completely rational, like absolutely annihilate Johnny. “You guys ready?”

“Hell yes!” Jeongguk yells and Jaehyun groans, loudly. The two of them pass Jisung—Jaehyun pats him on the shoulder dejectedly—and head towards the track. Johnny follows them, running, because he clearly hates life.

“No time like the present, right?” Yukhei says, forcing a smile as he leaves Jisung and Minho alone on the outskirts of the field.

Fuck _,_ Minho thinks, staring directly at a patch of grass to his right. There’s some clovers sprouting there and a couple of daisies, and he desperately hopes Jisung doesn’t try to talk to him.

Jisung, of course, doesn’t get the hint.

“You’re not too cold?” Jisung asks, because he’s painfully oblivious. A hand comes into Minho’s line of sight, startling him before his mind shifts into place and he grasps it, letting Jisung pull him to his feet. Jisung’s brows drag together and the attempt at a smile completely disappears off his face. “You’re freezing."

“I’m fine,” Minho brushes it off, even as he can’t stop himself from rubbing at his arm. He’s not fine, not really, but he can’t say anything now, not after their coach and at least five of his teammates asked him if he was absolutely sure he wanted to leave his jacket in the locker room for practice.

It’s just—he thought it was going to be warmer, considering how the sun weighed him down on his way to practice. He thought it was going to be fine if he stuffed his jacket and went outside in just a t-shirt, but the moment the sun disappeared behind clouds he was proven wrong. He could, in theory, run back to the locker room and grab his jacket or a hoodie or _something_ , at least, to shield him from the sudden, late March cold, but the thought of having to go there and back, only to run more laps on the track, makes him feel impossibly tired.

Besides, it’s a blow to what little is left of his dignity, and he’s like, ninety percent sure his whole reputation would be in ruins if he did that, so.

“It’s, you know, just a bit cold,” he says, really not wanting to have this or any conversation with Jisung, not after he discovered how much he’s been embarrassing himself a couple of days ago. “I’ll be fine.”

Jisung stares at him and Minho tries not to shift under the weight of his gaze. “Why didn’t you bring your jacket?”

“I, uh,” Minho starts, trying to think of how to frame the story so he doesn’t look like that much of a dumbass. He sets his jaw, directs his eyes back towards the daisies growing a few feet away. “I thought it was warmer?”

“Oh,” Jisung says. Minho thinks that’s the end of it, is ready to smile awkwardly and forget this whole thing ever happened, but before he knows it, Jisung’s draping something over his shoulders. “Here, so you’re not too cold.”

His letterman jacket, Minho realizes.

Jisung’s draping his letterman jacket over his shoulders.

“I can’t—I can’t take your jacket,” he says, flushing, even as his hands take hold of it, even as he can’t hide the relief that comes from the feeling of warmth, even as his head feels dizzy because Jisung draped his letterman jacket over his shoulders.

“Sure you can,” Jisung says and when Minho looks up at him, finally, he’s grinning. The sun’s shinning on him—for him, if Minho’s feeling poetic enough—making him squint as he looks at Minho, lighting up his eyes and making him shine, making him glint, marking him as something ethereal, and Minho ignores the way his fingers itch to shift through his hair. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

Minho smiles back, hoping his face isn’t as red as he feels, hoping his feelings aren’t written plainly across his eyes, and says, “thanks.”

.

The following sequence of events goes down:

  1. Minho forgets to give Jisung his jacket at the end of practice,
  2. Jisung texts their volleyball team group chat that the game against the girls’ team is postponed indefinitely, for seemingly no reason, and
  3. Jisung texts the group chat again the next morning, telling them he won’t be present at practice tomorrow.



Minho excuses himself from his friends, ignoring Hyunjin’s cries of protest as he passes into the kitchen, taking a seat by the table. His fingers hover over his keyboard as he types out a number of different messages, erasing each one when he reads it again. Maybe he shouldn’t text Jisung privately at all? They’re still friends, sure, regardless of how much Minho embarrassed himself in front of him on the daily, but maybe Jisung will read it wrong and—

—a notification comes through on his phone, and he feels himself flush, unreasonably stressed and giddy as he opens the message.

_have to skip practice bc i’m sick,_ the message reads. _absolutely hating this for me._

He juggles his phone in his hands as he texts back, _yeah it does kind of make you an absolute loser._ He feels a bit bad about how the message comes off, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he tacks on a _hope you get well soon though._

His leg bounces under the table, moving on its own accord, as he waits for Jisung to respond, staring down at his screen. After more than a few minutes, his lips tug down into a frown. Maybe he responded too fast, maybe Jisung’s not going to reply and he’s got nothing to wait for, maybe—

—his phone pings again. _haha yeah,_ Jisung writes, _don’t want to miss any more practices though, especially since prelims are so close._ There’s a significant pause before the last message comes through, _kind of feels like i should be doing more for the team._

_you’re already doing a lot,_ Minho hurries to write, _and it’s really not your fault you’re sick._

If anything, it’s Minho’s fault entirely, he thinks, even though he’s a bit too proud to admit that. He remembers the letterman jacket with bright red letters over the back, haphazardly thrown over the back of his desk chair. It’s Minho’s fault and maybe if he hadn’t—

“—what are you doing here?” Jeongin’s loud voice cuts through his thoughts as he throws himself over the back of Minho’s chair, startling him and making him nearly drop his phone. “Aren’t you supposed to be the one working on your project?”

“Shut up, you little shit,” Minho says, taking the chance to set his phone on the table and pat Jeongin’s cheek, grinning at the way he preens to the touch. “I’m getting to it. Letting inspiration hit me first and all that.”

“If you don’t start it now, you won’t finish in time,” Jeongin says, frowning and pulling away when Minho’s discarded phone buzzes on the kitchen. “Is something worrying you? Is that it?”

“No, not really,” Minho starts, twisting in his seat to face him, “I’m just messaging—uh, well, just a classmate.”

“Oh,” Jeongin says, leaning back, his eyes narrowed and his grin back full-time, “you were grinning an awful lot for it to be _just a classmate,_ but sure, whatever you say.”

He successfully ducks out of the way when Minho swats at him.

“What are we oppressing Minho for today?” Hyunjin asks, inserting himself into the conversation. He’s leaning against the threshold of the kitchen, eyebrows raised and hands stained with bright blue paint.

“I don’t know,” Jeongin pouts, “he won’t tell me.”

“That’s fair, I wouldn’t tell you either,” Hyunjin says, as he moves to sit down across from Minho, crossing his hands on the table. He ignores Jeongin’s whining as he tilts his head to the side, staring at Minho. “You’ll tell me what’s up, though, hm? We’re the best of friends, after all.”

“Go back to working on your painting, you nerd,” Minho says.

“You go back to working on your painting,” Hyunjin says, sounding every bit like the child he is. “Otherwise you’re not going to finish junior year just because you failed art, you absolute loser.”

“I think we all already know I’m not passing this assignment,” Minho says, shrugging, before his eyebrows twist down and he scowls. “If only you—or Woojin, whatever—had done it like I asked you to, we wouldn’t be in this situation, and yet here we are. I even offered to pay!”

Hyunjin scoffs. “With what money?”

“I’m sure that my lovely, responsible, amazing brother would have donated to the cause,” Minho says, his voice rising in volume. Silence follows and he slumps back down in his seat. “Ah,” he says, “I forgot Seokjin left for his shift already.”

“This is so sad,” Jeongin says. “Press f to pay respects.”

“Shut up, you stupid gamer,” Minho says, “no one even says that anymore.”

“Beomgyu does,” Jeongin counters, his cheeks bright red, and Minho rolls his eyes while Hyunjin coos.

“This was lovely and all, but I am in the middle of something,” Minho says. “Can’t the two of you leave and, I don’t know, bother Seungmin instead or something?”

“Oh, but don’t you want to spend time with us, hyung?” Jeongin says, draping himself over the back of Minho’s chair again. He sets his chin on Minho’s head, too, adding, “and, besides, this is the first time we’ve all hung out together since forever. I’ve missed you.”

Minho presses his lips into a thin line, moving his hand to pat Jeongin’s.

“I do want to spend time with you,” he says, letting himself soften, about to let them drag him back into the living room when he remembers his conversation with Jisung. He chews on the inside of his cheek, before he sighs. “I just need to finish this one thing, okay? Just give me a moment and I’ll be right there.”

“Okay,” Jeongin says, somewhat dejectedly, through he detaches himself from Minho and leaves the room to join Woojin and Seungmin, who are no doubt still working on their respective projects and hopefully not bothering any of his cats. Hyunjin hesitates in his seat, half-heartedly tracing some designs on the table cloth.

“Minho,” he says, finally, “is this about—”

“—just give me a moment to finish and I’ll be right there,” Minho repeats, trying to make his tone final, and Hyunjin sighs.

“Fine,” he says, though the corners of his lips are still tugging down. “If you need—if you need something, though, I’m here for you, you know. The others, too.”

“Yeah,” Minho says, smiles. “I know.”

Hyunjin doesn’t seem satisfied with his response, though he forces himself out of his seat anyway, absent-mindedly patting the top of Minho’s head when he passes him on the way back to the living room. Minho inhales, exhales, before he picks up his phone, his eyes going over the messages left by Jisung.

_hngnhngh,_ reads the first one, then _i guess,_ and _it’s my responsibility as the captain to show up and help everyone, though. idk haha maybe it’s kind of stupid_ and, finally, _sorry for bothering you with this._

_you’re not bothering me,_ Minho texts back. His fingers stop him midway through writing _you could never,_ as he thinks of Hyunjin’s deep frown, and instead he adds, _i’m here if you want to talk._

_thank you,_ Jisung texts back and, as if on a whim, adds a chain of heart emojis, ones that make Minho’s own heart shake too fast in his chest. He sends him back some random ones, a collection of crocodile and angry and vomiting emojis, ignoring the one heart that sneaks its way into the message.

_i hope you don’t feel too bad despite being sick,_ he sends, too, if only to keep the conversation going. 

Not too much time passes before Jisung responds with, _it’s mostly just a fever so it’s fine,_ followed closely by _can barely think but other than that i’m having a great time._

The smile Minho had to bite back disappears completely off his face as his mouth forms a frown. _i hope this isn’t making your headache worse????_

_hmgh it kinda is,_ Jisung writes and Minho’s ready to catapult himself out the window and forget his whole existence. _i like talking with you though, so it makes up for the headache anyway._

Minho wants to scream, feeling himself burn red.

_ajshdsd :((_ he writes, before staring down at it and deleting the entire message. He tries to figure out what to say without crossing any lines and it takes him a few minutes before he finally settles on, _sucks to suck i guess._

_haha yeah,_ Jisung replies, in the span of a few seconds, and if Minho didn’t know he was straight, he’d let himself wonder whether Jisung felt as giddy as he does, whether he was awaiting each response as eagerly as he is.

Minho sighs, deflating in on himself as he stares down at the message. He’d let himself get carried away in a way that he shouldn’t have, really. He fiddles with his hands before he writes back, _‘yeah,’_ and shuts his phone before he can add anything, slipping it back into his pocket and going back to the living room.

.

Felix is fidgeting all through biology.

Minho wouldn’t be so annoyed by it—he’s used to Hyunjin, after all—if not for the fact that the night before he barely got any sleep. As is, Felix’s endless rustling in his chair is pushing Minho’s patience severely so, nearly sending him over the edge with each passing second.

“Are you okay?” He asks, trying to at least mask his irritation. It doesn’t seem to work, considering how Felix startles, dropping his pen onto his desk.

“Yeah, yeah,” Felix nods, his leg bouncing up and down, the ends of his shoe laces catching on the leg of his desk and ringing in Minho’s ears. “Sorry, just a bit stressed about this, uh, this—this thing?”

Minho squints at him, though he doesn’t press at the topic. “I’m sure, whatever it is, that it’ll be fine,” he says, his tone forceful, and Felix’s eyes flutter closed as he nods again, before he turns back to his notes and jots the next few concepts down. He’s gone still, his feet flat on the floor, and Minho’s—

—never mind.

He bites along the inside of his cheek, shutting his eyes and trying to focus, even as Felix clicks his pen on and off for what seems like eternity. He finally stops, only to toy with his phone, his fingers bouncing on the screen as he spams some chat, his free hand tapping away at his desk.

It’s then that Minho remembers Felix’s friend group consists of, amongst others, Jisung—who’s still sick and gone from school, even though it’s already Wednesday. He’d messaged the volleyball group chat about missing another practice and Minho could nearly feel the defeat that emanated from his words.

“Hey,” he nudges Felix, trying to keep his voice low enough that their teacher doesn’t notice. “How’s, uh, how’s Jisung?”

Felix stops all his movements then, once more, as if he’s frozen in place. Minho raises his brows as he waits for an answer, and Felix just gapes at him, before his mouth twists into a half-smile. “Why don’t you text him yourself?”

“I, uh,” Minho says, frowns. “You’re his friend?”

Felix grins wider, opens his mouth, before a new message pops up on his phone and his attention is immediately captured by it. He reads it a few times, tilts his head to the side before he sighs and types out a message.

Minho withholds a groan, moving back to glance at the screen and try to understand whatever the teacher’s on about when Felix says, “uh, he’s still sick.”

“I gathered, yeah,” Minho says.

“He’s still sick and he’s missed a handful of classes,” Felix continues, as if Minho didn’t know any of that. “He’s missed a few assignments, too, and didn’t manage to get a few worksheets…”

“What exactly are you getting at?” Minho asks, turning to look at him when Felix trials off and is clearly waiting for him to respond. “It’s not his fault he’s sick, Felix.”

Felix’s eyes widen comically and he races to say, “no, no,” repeating it in a seemingly endless cycle, all the while shaking his head rapidly. “Not what I mean. Definitely not what I meant.”

“What did you mean, then?”

“Okay, so here’s the thing,” Felix says, setting his phone down and twisting his hands together. “Someone needs to give him his missed assignments.”

“Yeah, and?” Minho asks, still confused and more annoyed by each minute Felix spends beating around the bush. He regrets asking him anything at all—but then he’d need to spend the rest of the silence with him restless, and at this point he’s not even sure which is worse. “Get to the point, Felix.”

“Minho, Felix, pay attention,” the teacher quips from the front of the classroom and Felix straightens in his seat, staring at the board. Minho sighs, though he does the same, resigning to wait until the end of class to finally hear whatever Felix wanted to say.

Until then, though, he occupies himself with scribbling down notes into his notebook, hoping he’s able to decipher them when he’s preparing for the test. His mind goes off-track and he doodles in the margins, trying to ignore the way Felix’s tapping the table leisurely. The time passes impossibly slowly, Minho counting down each minute, but finally the class ends with the teacher rattling off some homework.

“So,” Felix says, stuffing his books into his bag, only to twist out a folder. Minho watches as he does so, his brows pulling together, his lips tugging down into a frown.

“So,” Minho echoes, shaking his head and standing up, hoisting his bag onto his shoulders. “Can you tell me what you want from me? Finally?”

Felix’s eyes flit towards the ceiling, as if Minho’s the one who’s being difficult. “Jisung’s been missing his classes,” Felix says, “and has some worksheets to collect.” Minho shakes his head at him, still very confused, and Felix sighs, loudly. “ _Someone_ has to give them to him.”

“Okay,” Minho says, his frown deepening. “Someone has to give them to him, okay. What exactly does this have to do with me—oh.” He blinks, leaning back. “You want me to—what? But I’m not even in any class with him. Why would I even—what?”

“There you go,” Felix says, grinning widely. “And, because I’m a lovely friend, I have all he needs, all he missed, right here.”

He thrusts the folder at Minho, who takes hold of it without thinking. Felix beams at him.

“But can’t you take it to him,” Minho tries, “what—why are you giving me this? What are you trying to accomplish?”

“Oh, you know,” Felix says, waggling his brows. Minho opens his mouth, closes it, speechless even as Felix waves his fingers at him and practically skips out of the room. “I’ll see you later, Minho! Good luck!”

Good luck with what, exactly, Minho doesn’t even get the chance to ask.

He huffs, giving up on trying to understand Felix and instead directing his attention to the papers in his hand, to Jisung’s name scrawled across the top of them. He can barely hide how his heart starts racing in his chest at the thought of giving them to Jisung, which is stupid.

It’s stupid, he’s stupid, and somewhere in the bottom of his stomach annoyance brews at Felix. He meant well, Minho’s sure, he meant well but that doesn’t mean anything, not when Minho keeps setting himself up for failure.

He sighs, leaving the classroom once he’s stuffed everything into his bag. He’s got one more class left, but at least it’s with Sooyoung, making it somewhat tolerable. He stops by his locker on the way there, stuffing his biology textbook deep inside, letting his fingers brush over the letterman jacket that’s inside.

At least Felix’s given him a chance—one as good as any—to give it back and be done with it already.

.

It’s kind of funny how quickly Minho goes from wanting to ask Jisung out—getting ready to, really—to wanting to get over him. It’s even funnier if he thinks about how he spent his junior year pining helplessly over him, with no real chance, and then spent a good half of his senior year letting his feelings deepen as he got to know him, as he let himself believe his feelings were returned.

He’d recount the thought to Sooyoung—almost does, during their last class—however her sense of humor is just bad enough that she’d simply stare at him, almost pitifully, her mouth twisting downwards.

And so, instead of sharing his thoughts, he lets them stew in his head, even as he leaves school, as he takes a different route, as he finds himself on the way to Jisung’s house. The whole thing’s humiliating, really, try as he may to see it differently, but, the truth is, despite everything, he’s Jisung’s friend.

His feelings—which he never disclosed—don’t matter in this situation, not really, not when Jisung’s sick, has been sick, and needs someone to get his work to him. Minho swallows his pride, swallows his feelings, and finds himself at Jisung’s doorstep, holding his letterman jacket and the folder Felix had given him.

He fiddles with his hands, trying to ignore the way his heart is racing in his chest. He takes a deep breath—all he has to do is knock, hand everything over to Jisung and leave. That’s it.

Somehow, it all seems impossibly hard.

He wishes, suddenly, that he’d asked Sooyoung or Seungmin or any one of his friends to tag along. He’d get moral support _and_ an excuse to leave quickly, and now—now, he has to stumble his way through this by himself, hoping he doesn’t do anything stupid.

_It’ll be okay,_ he thinks. The worst that can happen, after all, is that he embarrasses himself in front of Jisung—but he does that on the daily, anyway, so what does it matter?

He knocks on Jisung’s door, which pulls open to reveal—oh.

“You’ve been standing out here for the past ten minutes, if not more,” Haseul says, the corner of her lips tugging up as she eyes him, clearly amused. This—this is so much worse than anything he could have imagined. “Did it really have to take you that long?”

“Oh,” he says, because this is Haseul, captain of the girl’s volleyball team. Haseul, who he’s pretty sure he’s heard myths about from the freshmen. Haseul, who’s treated more as a deity than anything else.

Haseul, who’s Jisung’s girlfriend.

His mouth feels dry as he tries to collect his thoughts. He opens his mouth, closes it, and Haseul just stares at him, unwilling to take any sort of mercy on him. His cheeks burn red with embarrassment. Maybe—maybe he’s at the wrong house, but—no, he’s certain this is Jisung’s house. He double-checked at least three times, too, and he can’t be wrong, and—

—oh.

Jisung _did_ say he had a friend over and who else could he have meant, other than Haseul? Of course it’s her. Minho wants to laugh.

“Sorry, just kind of tired,” Minho says, shakes his head to try and clear his thoughts. He closes his eyes for a second, concentrates, and manages to say, “I came here for Jisung?”

“Of course you did,” Haseul says, leaning against the doorframe, and he really, really wishes she’d just make it easy on him.

“Um, is he inside?”

“Uhhhh,” Haseul says, leaning away from the door and looking around. She narrows her eyes as her eyes zero in one spot before she turns back to Minho, pressing her lips into a thin line. “He’s still asleep, like the absolute fool that he is, though I can go wake him up if you’d like? I know he wouldn’t want to miss you.”

Minho nods, off-handedly, ignoring the way his heart jumps at Haseul’s implications, knowing she doesn’t mean what it seems like she does. “No, it’s fine,” he says, straightening in his place. “It’s better if he rests.”

“Mmm, okay,” Haseul says, her eyes narrowed, as she taps her fingers against the door frame, staring at him. She shakes her head, raises her brows, “anything else you need? I’m kinda busy.”

Minho doesn’t have to strain to hear the sounds of an anime opening, coming from inside the house, and he’s reminded of what Jisung had said on the bus. His knees feel weak and he wants nothing more than to just go home and stare at his ceilings for a couple of hours, musing about how he’s a sad teen with unrequited feelings.

“Oh, um, yes,” Minho says, looking down before he holds out the jacket and folder, stackedsomewhat neatly on top of each other. He clears his throat. “This is from school. From Felix. It’s everything he missed—or most of it, maybe, I’m not really sure. And his jacket.”

Haseul laughs, as she gathers everything in her arms, spinning to dump it on the dresser near the entrance. Her laugh is loud but sincere and genuine, and it makes him smile despite the way his heart’s sinking lower and lower in his chest. Minho imagines he’d like her, too, if he was straight.

He’s not, though, thank God.

“Thank you,” she says, “I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”

“He better,” Minho says, “I did go all this way to bring it to him, after all.”

Haseul furrows her brows. “Oh? I thought—do you not live nearby?”

“Uh,” Minho says, tripping over his words. He should have just shut up, really, and left when he had the chance. “No, but—it’s not that much of a detour, though. So it’s fine.”

“If you say so,” she says, before the corner of her lips rises to form something more mischievous than her smile and she adds, “are you sure you don’t want to keep the jacket, though? I’m sure Jisung wouldn’t mind.”

Minho opens his mouth, closes it, feels himself flush. She’s—she’s still smiling at him, and it doesn’t seem like her intentions are malicious. It doesn’t seem like they’re malicious, but they barely know each other and she’s making fun of him, making fun of the fact that he likes Jisung, and dread forces itself up his fingers, freezing them in place.

“I’m sure,” he says, forcing a smile. He stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jacket, letting them curl into fists there before he says or does something he regrets. “I’ll see you around.”

“Um, okay,” Haseul says, though he misses the way she frowns, the way her brows pull together and the way concern clouds her eyes. “I’ll tell Jisung you came by.”

“Okay,” he says, even as _you don’t have to_ burns his tongue, and stumbles down the steps.

.

“Mine!” Mark yells, his forearms stretched out and exposed as he bumps the volleyball. He puts too much force into it, making it barrel straight towards the ceiling, before it falls back quickly into Yukhei’s prepared hands. He sets it for Minho and the only thing he needs to do is get it over the net. He can spike it, even, he can bump it, he can lightly flick it over the net; there’s a wide range of possibilities to choose from, and he only needs to use one.

A whistle rings out.

Minho tries not to groan.

“Should have set it better, sorry,” Yukhei says, even though they both know it’s not his fault. It’s not the first spike Minho’s screwed up today, either, and probably won’t be the last.

“It’s not your fault,” Minho forces through his teeth, pushing back his hair as he thinks back to the play. It should have been fine, the ball should have spun over the net easily, should have landed on the opposing side of the net, not smack-dab in the middle of it. “God, this is humiliating.”

“It’s fine,” Jaehyun says, moving to pat Minho’s shoulder, “it’s fine and you’ll do better, but get ready, or otherwise they’re going to ace this shot.”

Yukhei rolls his eyes even as he steps back to his spot by the net and Minho nods, extending his arms and letting his knees bend as he anticipates the shot. Whoever’s making it prepares for a jump serve, throwing the ball up and moving to send it swinging towards the net. This time, Johnny intercepts. The only problem is his forearms—they’re angled wrong, making the ball curve in the air.

“Sorry!” Johnny yells out, as Mark struggles to get any sort of leverage, the ball barely hitting his hand. Jeongguk’s the one to make it fit over the net, as he skids over the field and extends his hand just so.

The opposing team works smoothly—smoother than they do, really—as the ball is intercepted, set and spiked to their side, in a series of fluid movements that blend together into one. Their block fails and Mark barely manages to stop the ball from hitting the ground.

“Minho!” Yukhei says as he extends his fingers over his head, setting the ball for him once again. Minho moves towards it, eyes focused on the ball and he should make it, he should, he should—

—a whistle rings out.

His team erupts, their shouts and yells filling the whole gym, magnifying and echoing around Minho as they pat him on the back or, in Jeongguk’s case, shout something incomprehensible in his ear. For once Minho doesn’t mind, grinning along with them. Their joy lasts only for a few moments before they have to continue the game and move positions and nerves bunch themselves under Minho’s skin when he glances at the score board.

Their point totals are close—too close for Minho’s liking—but his team only needs to score twice in order to win. The opposing, too, which only makes him more anxious, especially as he’s the one to serve the ball, now. One mistake and it could be the end of the game.

They might not even qualify for the semifinals.

He sighs, taking a deep breath before readying for the serve, his eyes unwillingly catching Jisung’s, who sends him a warm smile. Minho bites back his own, throwing the ball in the air, and—“Go Minho!”—his open palm connects with it, sending it flying over the net.

A whistle rings out.

“Last serve!” The referee yells just as the ball is passed back towards Minho, who stares down at it, trying not to flush. He tosses it up and hits it again, stubbornly hoping for a second ace, just as Jisung’s voice rings out over the court.

It should be embarrassing, maybe—it _is_ embarrassing, really, but more than anything, it makes him determined to win the match. It makes adrenaline pump faster though his blood, makes his heart thunder against his chest, threatening to shatter his ribs, makes him bounce on his feet as he waits for the ball to return to their side of the court.

And it does, faster than he expected, spinning over the net. Jaehyun’s the one to bump it up, having to sink onto his knees to make it fly into the air, and Jeongguk props it up for Yukhei to push it over the net. It falls back down—the other team’s block was successful, and Johnny just manages to kick out his foot and prevent the ball from hitting the ground.

“Mine!” Minho yells, sending the ball towards the net. It’s not fast enough nor high enough to warrant a spike, not really, but Jeongguk merely grins as he uses the tips of his fingers to gently steer the ball over the net, only grinning wider when the ball connects with the ground.

A whistle rings out.

.

“God, I can’t believe we actually did it,” Yukhei says, a good two hours later, slumped in his seat. They’re sitting in some diner—have been, since after the game—celebrating their win, still a bit high on endorphins, high on victory, high on their excitement for semifinals.

_Semifinals._

It’s still all a bit surreal to Minho, but. They’ve made it past the prelims, squashing all his doubts that they wouldn’t, and now there’s so much ahead of them.

“We really are the nation’s volleyball team,” Minho says, his fingers racing across the table in tune with the rain pounding on the windows. “We’re practically on top of the world, babey.”

“It’s still just the prelims,” Jisung says, though his smile is so wide it nearly splits his face in two, his eyes soft. He’s huddled in a number of hoodies, despite the not-too-cold weather, with a hood drawn over his face. “Though—if you keep up the good game, we’ll definitely make it past semifinals.”

“Yeah!” Jeongguk says, too loud for the small diner. “And—you’ll be playing with us for the semis! So it’ll be a smooth ride from them to finals, I’m sure.”

“Maybe,” Jisung allows, toying with his empty glass. He chews on the inside of his cheek, visibly distressed by something, and Minho’s sure it’s about missing all the practices from the past week, about not being able to play during the game today.

He’d tell him it’s not his fault, that it doesn’t matter, that he still showed up, despite spending most of the time looking like he’s feverish and about to collapse, despite shivering in his twenty jackets, despite falling into unstoppable bouts of coughing. He’d tell him it’s not his fault, but he can’t exactly burst out with that in the middle of conversation.

“Still,” Jisung says, “you all played well today.” His hand comes up to tug at his own earlobe as he choses his words carefully, it seems, dragging out the silence. “I should be well enough by, uh, Monday to join the practices again—though tomorrow you’ll still be on your own. I’ll try to come by, but I can’t promise anything.”

“It’s better if you get some rest, maybe,” Jaehyun comments, off-handedly, and Minho whole-heartedly agrees.

“Yeah,” Minho says, clears his throat. “Don’t want you still sick when the prelims roll around.”

“I guess not,” Jisung says, cocking his head to the side. His eyes fall closed for a moment and despite being tired, despite being sick, he still looks ethereal under the too bright lights in the diner.

He still looks ethereal and for a moment, Minho feels like he’s drowning in everything he feels for him. For a moment, his heart seems to still in his chest, rise in his throat, and he feels like he can’t breathe, almost, feels air trapped in his lungs. For a moment, he feels his every emotion pulsing in his veins, tugging at his wrists, pulling him down, and, for a moment, he doesn’t think he minds.

And—and—Jisung opens his eyes, meeting Minho’s straight on, letting a soft smile bloom over his face, and Minho knows he’s far gone. He knows, but he pushes the thought into the depths of his mind, letting the moment pass as he averts his eyes and coughs into his fist.

“Anyway,” Jaehyun’s saying, an apologetic smile on his face as he slides out of his seat, “I do have to get going, actually.”

“Ah, me too,” Jeongguk says, grabbing hold of Jaehyun’s sleeve and slowing him down, rising to his feet and following in his footsteps. “He is my ride, after all.”

Jaehyun rolls his eyes, though his eyes still look impossibly fond, impossibly affectionate as he watches Jeongguk, letting him intertwine their fingers after he finishes some elaborate handshake with Jisung.

“See you on practice tomorrow,” Jaehyun says, throwing up a half-wave, Jeongguk nodding wildly at his side. “And you on Monday,” he tacks on to Jisung, who just shrugs at him, still smiling.

“I will bust your knee caps if you’re still sick and come tomorrow,” Jeongguk says, raises his eyebrows as if that’s going to strengthen his threat, before he grins, almost unhinged, and, ignoring how Jaehyun’s already pulling him away, yells, “semifinals, here we come!”

“Seriously, don’t stretch yourself too thin, yeah?” Yukhei says. “We do need you for next week’s game.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jisung says, waving a hand, looking embarrassed. “I’m sure you’d do well, anyway, but I should be fine. No worries.”

“Mhm,” Yukhei hums, his eyes narrowed before he shrugs, standing up. “I’ve got to get going, too, before the rain gets any worse. Do either of you need a ride?”

“No,” Jisung says, shaking his head.

“I’ll be fine,” Minho says. There’s a bus stop not too far away and he should have an umbrella stuffed somewhere in his bag, too. Yukhei gives them one final smile before he leaves, and Minho realizes too late that he’s been left alone with Jisung.

“Um,” Jisung says, his fingers moving to the napkin laying flat on the table, folding one of its corners. “Can we talk?”

“Uh,” Minho says, trying to stall. Maybe if he stalls enough he can die and avoid this in its entirety. He has a vague idea of what Jisung wants to talk about—Minho’s feelings for him, probably, considering that if Haseul knows, he must as well—and has been avoiding him for this exact reason the whole day, leaving the school halls before Jisung had a chance to walk up and interact. “Uh, yeah, sure. Why not.”

“Okay,” Jisung says, smiles, soft and genuine, a bit unsure, and Minho just wants to be over with it all. “I just need to pay and then we can leave and, uh, yeah.”

“Okay,” Minho echoes, before he furrows his brows, confused. “Wait, you’re paying for this? It’s not from the, the team budget?”

“It’s not an official team activity,” Jisung says, though he’s smiling even as he searches through his numerous jackets to find his wallet. “I’m paying for it, but it’s not so bad. I’ll just have to pick up some more shifts at the café.”

“You could have said you’re the one paying,” Minho says, his frown tugging his lips down. “I’m sure the rest of the team would have pitched in, you know.”

And—they would have pitched in, if they had known, if Jisung hadn’t told them the team was paying for it. Would have ordered less, too; Minho’s eyes sweep over the table, over their plates, over what’s left after their team of twelve set camp there for nearly two hours.

“It really is fine,” Jisung says, again, pushing himself up from his seat, “just, give me a moment, okay?”

Minho nods, absent-mindedly, stuffing his hands into his pockets and trying not to think. Jisung’s doing all this, for them, even though he barely ate and is barely able to keep standing on his feet, too.

“Let me foot the bill.”

“Huh?” Jisung asks, turning around. “I—I can’t ask you to do this.”

“You’re not asking me,” Minho says, a bit stiff as he stands up from his seat. The words spill out from his mouth involuntarily and his lips almost twist into a frown. What is he even doing? “I volunteered.”

Jisung sputters, before he straightens and says, “no. I’m supposed to take care of this.”

“The team budget is supposed to take care of this,” Minho corrects, though he sighs when Jisung doesn’t budge. “Let’s split the bill, then.”

Jisung looks at him, his eyes narrowing as he presses his mouth into a thin line, before he seems to give up. “Fine,” he says, his shoulders slumping the slightest bit. “Thank you.”

.

The rain’s still pouring when they finally exit the diner. It doesn’t help that the wind’s strong, too, making it feel much colder than it should be. Minho has to pull his jacket closer around himself and Jisung rubs at his arms, though that doesn’t seem to help much.

“Are you okay?” Minho asks, despite himself. He should leave, he knows, should head for his bus stop, but Jisung looks so small, nearly curling in on himself in his countless layers.

He should leave, he knows, but he can’t bring himself to.

“Mhm,” Jisung says and Minho frowns, eying him, how pale he is now. Before his mind whirs into place and lets him form a single thought, he presses the back of his hand to Jisung’s forehead the way he’s done many times before to Jeongin—to Hyunjin, too—and the way Woojin or Seokjin have done many times before to him. “What—what are you doing?”

“At least you don’t have a fever,” Minho says, pulling his hand away and sticking it into his pocket before he can do something like brush back Jisung’s hair or intertwine their fingers together, maybe. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” Jisung repeats for the fiftieth time that evening. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Okay,” Minho says, worry still prodding at the sides of his mind. “Just tell me how you’re getting home? Is someone coming to pick you up, maybe?”

“Um,” Jisung says, squints off into the distance, unable to focus on anything in particular. “I—uh, I’m going by bus.”

“By bus,” Minho echoes. He presses his lips into a thin line, thinking. It’s got to be about thirty minutes from Jisung’s home, if he’s mapping it out correctly, and he’s sick, a bit unsteady on his feet, with no umbrella, and—“I’ll go with you.”

Jisung blinks at him. He opens his mouth, closes it, letting Minho’s words register in his brain. “You’ll—but that’s not even your route home.”

“I’ll go with you,” he repeats, digging into his bag to pull out his umbrella. Jisung gapes at him, even as he opens it over the two of them. “Come on,” he says, offering his elbow to Jisung.

“You really don’t have to do this, you know,” Jisung says, his voice low, soft, even as his fingers tighten around Minho’s elbow and Minho ignores the way his heart fastens, the way his head feels the slightest bit dizzy.

“I don’t mind,” Minho says. And he doesn’t, not really, not even when he thinks about the extra hour it’ll take him to get home. He doesn’t, not when he thinks about how Jisung’ll get home safe and dry. “And, um, where’s the bus stop?”

Jisung huffs out laughter, even as he rattles off the directions. Silence falls over them and Minho thinks that’s the way it’ll stay, until Jisung clears his throat and says, “uh, you came over Wednesday?”

Minho tries not to frown, tries not to feel his heart drop in his chest, tries not to feel dread climbing under his skin. He really doesn’t want to talk about this.

“Yeah,” he says.

Jisung worries his bottom lip. “I’m sorry I was asleep,” he says, then frowns. “And for whatever Haseul said to you. I assume it was bad, since you, since, uh—I mean, you know.”

“Uh,” Minho says, pressing his lips into a thin line, pretending he doesn’t hear the _since you’ve been avoiding me_ loud and clear. His eyes sweep over the horizon and he spots the empty bus stop a few yards away. “It’s not your fault. You shouldn’t worry about it.”

“Maybe,” Jisung says, though he doesn’t sound any less worried. He stumbles over his own feet and Minho manages to steady him with a hand on his shoulder. Jisung flares red and says, “oh. Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Minho says, a smile breaking his lips in spite of himself. He readjusts the umbrella in his hands and adds, “and, uh, yeah, it really is fine. Haseul wasn’t—she wasn’t rude or anything. I was just a bit out of it.”

“If you say so,” Jisung says, after a moment, staring down at the pavement. “And, uh, sorry for Felix. I—hm, he shouldn't have made you bring me everything.”

“He didn’t make me—”

“—he gave you the papers, with no other option than to bring them to me,” Jisung points out.

“Yeah, but I didn’t have to give them to you,” Minho points out, “if I, I don’t know, was really against the idea, or, just didn’t want to drop by, I could have dropped them off in your locker or just kept them in mine until you got better.”

It sounds—it sounds almost like a confession, even to his own ears.

“I,” Jisung starts, unsure. He’s still staring at Minho, who feels unease crawling up his throat with each passing second, who suddenly regrets every decision he’s made, up to this point. “I just, I don’t know. Lately it just seems like, it just seems like, uh, God, okay. It just seems like you don’t want to talk to me? Or maybe like, you’re, um, like you’re treating me a bit different lately, like something’s changed. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me.”

Minho opens his mouth. He could tell him now—could tell him everything, could tell him about the feelings he harbored for him or about the way he didn’t know Jisung was straight, that he was dating someone, that he never really liked Minho in the same way. He could, he could, but instead he looks to the sky, choosing his words carefully.

“I’m sorry,” he says, finally, trying not to stumble over his words under the weight of Jisung’s gaze. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way, um. It’s—I’ve just been—I don’t know, just, you know. A lot has happened?”

Jisung nods, off-handedly, as if Minho hasn’t been using that excuse for the past couple of weeks, and Minho turns to look at him. The sun’s sinking off behind some buildings, tracing Jisung’s profile in orange and pink and red all at once, making him seem impossibly gorgeous, making him seem impossibly ethereal, regal, maybe.

Jisung smiles, then, softly, and Minho swears he’s never been more in love.

“I do really like talking with you,” Minho says, his voice quiet, low, as if he’s afraid to break the silence, as if he’s afraid of what will happen once he says it. He swallows, trying to pull himself together. “I really like, uh, I really do like you.”

It’s as close to a confession as he’ll ever get, he figures, and Jisung blinks at him. His smile doesn’t falter, though, and that must be a good sign—now Minho’s just waiting for him to set a hand on his shoulder and tell him some spiel about how he accepts the gays, about how he’s not a homophobe and marches pride every year, a straight ally flag pinned proudly to his chest, but it never comes.

Instead, Jisung moves closer, making Minho furrow his brows, confused. He opens his mouth, worries his lip, and says, “can I—”

—water soaks into the back of Minho’s pants, making him jump, as a bus pulls up behind them. Whatever Jisung was going to say is forgotten, replaced by Minho’s frown and Jisung’s laughter.

“Hey,” Minho says, though he finds himself laughing, too, as he closes his umbrella and climbs with Jisung onto the nearly empty bus, the two fitting themselves into seats near the back. Jisung’s hand remains wrapped around his elbow, even as they sit down, but he can’t find it in himself to mind. “That wasn’t funny.”

“It kind of was,” Jisung says, pressing his head against the glass. Minho smiles, simply, watches as he stares out the window, ignoring the way his hands feel clammy and his heart is still pounding in his chest from before. It’s—it was nothing, surely.

“Which one’s your stop?” Minho asks and Jisung blinks, back to looking at him. He lists off the stop, but his gaze doesn’t return to the window. Minho clears his throat, feeling a thousand times more nervous than before. “If you want, you can, uh, nap? Get some rest? If it makes you feel better or, hmhhg, you know. I can wake you up.”

Jisung stares at him, before he smiles. “Thank you,” he says, letting his eyes droop closed. He rests his head on Minho’s shoulder and his hand slides from his elbow to Minho’s hand, gently taking hold of it.

Minho really, really hopes Jisung doesn’t hear how loudly his heart is beating in his chest.

.

They don’t talk about it.

Which—why would they talk about it, even? There’s nothing to talk about. Jisung was sick, a bit out of his mind, and Minho was just dumb enough to play along.

And—and yet, he thinks of the way Jisung had smiled at him softly on the bus stop, the way he’d stepped closer and moved to speak, the way he held Minho’s hand on the bus ride, the way he texted him, afterwards, a small ‘ _thank you’_ with a dozen or so hearts tacked on at the end.

Minho’s attributing too much weight to it, he’s sure, thinking it means something when it actually doesn’t. It’s stupid, but he keeps thinking about the look in Jisung’s eyes long after he gets home, long after he screams into his pillow and then throws himself on his bed and stares at his ceiling for hours on end. Long after his giddiness fades away and gives way to melancholy, long after he feels fatigue settle at the bottom of his bones. Long after Friday passes, long after the new week starts and things spin back to normal.

“If he was gay, I’m sure he’d be head over heels for you,” Hyunjin says, as if that’s supposed to make him feel any better. He’s using a pair of pencils to play air drums on Minho’s knees, hitting them lightly every so often.

Minho sighs. “Thanks,” he says, glancing at Hyunjin, then at Seungmin, who at least has the decency to smile sheepishly. “Can’t the two of you come back tomorrow? And leave me alone for now?”

“We’re all busy tomorrow,” Seungmin says, and Hyunjin accentuates that with a tap to Minho’s knee. “If you really want, we can leave, but you don’t seem too, uh, too great?”

“Yeah,” he says, pushing himself up on his elbows. “I’m not really feeling too great, either.”

“Mhm,” Seungmin hums in response, moving to sit closer to Minho, and Hyunjin taps his head with one of his pencils. “We could watch some shitty movie, if you’d like, or Yummy Mummies or whatever that show that Hyunjin watches is.”

“It _is_ Yummy Mummies,” Hyunjin says, pressing a hand over his heart, “I can’t believe you remembered.”

Seungmin rolls his eyes, “or you can talk about it, about what you’re feeling, if that's what you’re into.”

“Or we could sneak out and go to the park, to the playground we used to play at,” Hyunjin suggests, holding a pencil up, while Seungmin groans. “Come on, this is easily the best idea. We go to an old playground, swing and go down slides meant for kindergarteners, blast some terrible EDM and get arrested for public disturbance. Nothing can go wrong. It’s a flawless plan.”

“A flawless plan,” Seungmin echoes, shaking his head before he stops, tilts it to the side, frowning in thought. “Actually, it could work. As long as we skip that, uh, that public disturbance.”

“The public disturbance’s literally the main focus point of my pitch, but if we're feeling homophobic then fine, we can cut it out,” Hyunjin says, rolling his eyes. He and Seungmin share a look before the both of them look over at Minho, expectant, waiting for him to decide.

They end up going to the playground.

“Isn’t this humiliating?” Seungmin asks, pushing open the small gate. No one else’s there—to no one’s surprise, considering it’s already past sundown, considering the moon is already hanging low in the sky.

“We’re gay, Minnie,” Hyunjin says, raising his brows as he grins, “it’s, like, impossible for us to be humiliating.”

“It’s definitely possible, considering you’re humiliating all the time, loser,” Minho says, dragging his fingers over the fence, over the worn metal, one that used to be painted a bright green but now is a dull silver. They used to come here—the whole five of them—when they were younger, playing for as long as their parents would let them. Even as they got too old to play there, they still kept visiting, hanging around on the swings, slides, and the merry-go-round, spinning too fast and shouting incomprehensible things.

He missed it, he realizes.

“Sucks that Jeongin couldn’t tag along,” Minho says, after a moment, raising his head to find Seungmin and Hyunjin already sliding into the blue merry-go-round, fingers twisting on the steering wheel.

“Jeongin is, like, twelve,” Hyunjin says, “isn’t his curfew five pm or whatever? If you wanted him to tag along so bad, we could have gone earlier instead of spending half the day moping in your room.”

“I wasn’t moping,” Minho protests, his mouth set in a frown, “and if I had been, it definitely wasn’t for half the day.”

“Right,” Seungmin says, nodding off-handedly, as Minho climbs on the merry-go-round, “you spent half of the past week moping.”

Hyunjin raises his brows, purses his lips as he stares down at his hands, and Minho glares at Seungmin, but before he has the chance to say anything, they’re all momentarily distracted by Woojin.

“Fuck yeah!” Woojin yells, throwing his hand up, before he slows down to gently push open the gates, and Minho rolls his eyes.

They _will_ be getting written up for public disturbance, no doubt about it.

“The man, the myth, the legend,” Hyunjin shouts in response and Woojin shoots him a grin as he climbs onto the merry-go-round, sitting on the back of the last empty seat. He’s holding a juice cartoon, one that he’s just now unwrapping the straw for.

“So, what brings us here?” Woojin asks, his eyes landing on Minho for a beat longer than necessary before he has to look away to stab his straw through the hole.

“You couldn’t bring us some juice, too?” Minho asks, pointedly ignoring his question.

“Get your own, loser,” Woojin says, though he reaches into his jacket and produces three strawberry flavored lollipops, throwing them on the wheel. Minho eagerly grabs one, unwrapping it with his teeth.

“To answer your question, we’re back on our Jisung discourse,” Hyunjin says, almost as thanks as he picks up two lollipops, handing one to Seungmin. “By our, I mean Minho’s, but that’s pretty self-explanatory.”

“Jisung discourse,” Seungmin repeats, narrowing his eyes at him, even as he accepts the lollipop and stuffs it into the pocket of his jacket. “Is that—Jisung discourse? Really? You live like this?”

Hyunjin rolls his eyes, his fingers working on tearing the wrapper apart, “okay, we get it, you’re an incel.”

“Are we?” Woojin asks, ignoring the two of them as he turns to Minho, looking more concerned than anything, just as Minho pops the lollipop in his mouth. “Are you still—you know?”

Minho sighs, raising his brows, and Hyunjin jumps to fill in for him. “Of course it's Jisung discourse,” he says, with his full chest, and Minho thinks that Sooyoung, at least, wouldn’t betray him like this. As is, he’s stuck with these absolute losers—these absolute losers, whom, unfortunately, he loves with all his heart.

Woojin hums, sitting back, sipping his juice. Hyunjin turns to eye Minho, almost as if to see if he’s not too mad at him, before he points his still wrapped lollipop at Minho and says, “Minho, come on, you can’t be this shaken over some cishettie.”

“I’m not this shaken over some cishettie,” Minho repeats, even if his concentration falters when he thinks back to Friday, thinks back to how Jisung looked at him. It’s—it’s all him projecting, probably, definitely, and he hates that he’s building up this fake hope for himself that gets knocked down each time when he remembers Jisung’s straight. “It’s—God, you know.”

“It’s fine, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Seungmin hurries to say, likely as a response to Minho’s face flushing red, “but, you know, as is, you’ve got to stop—stop doing, uh, this, hm?”

Minho frowns, blinks at him. “Doing what, exactly?”

“Sulking? Moping? Letting him lead you on?” Seungmin says and Minho really hates whenever he's right. “Jisung’s—Jisung’s nice and all, and I’m sure he’s not doing this on purpose, but your feelings are going to keep getting hurt if you don’t, uh, you know, stop this? Or tell him something at least.”

“You can always avoid him and the whole thing, in general,” Hyunjin says, idly sucking on his lollipop. “I’m doing that, currently, and it’s working out just great for me.”

“Sure,” Seungmin says, though his voice falters, though he rolls his eyes to Minho the moment Hyunjin looks away. “But, you know, maybe he’s got a point, hidden somewhere between all his bullshit. It could do you good to put some distance between you and Jisung, maybe, so you’re not, you know. This, uh, this heartbroken?”

“I’m not heartbroken,” Minho says, though it sounds weak, even to his own ears. “I’ll be fine, okay? It’s,” he presses his lips into a thin line, sighing as he tries to find the right words for what he wants to say. “All I need now, is to be distracted for a bit, hm? That’s what we came here for, isn’t it?”

Woojin loudly slurps his juice through his straw, while Seungmin and Hyunjin exchange a look, not being as subtle as they definitely think they are. It’s Woojin who gives in first, a forced smile over his lips as his fingers wrap round the steering wheel, turning it to the side, making the merry-go-round start up.

“I guess so,” Seungmin says, joining in as he helps Hyunjin accelerate.

“Gay rights!” Hyunjin screams, raising his hands high, and Minho smiles, as he helps Seungmin and Woojin, laughter spilling out of him before long, and maybe, maybe, everything will be okay.

.

There’s a party the following Friday, one that Hyunjin and Woojin decide is essential for Minho to go to, despite the workload that’s piling on his desk and despite the fact that he’s just not feeling it. They hook their arms around his elbows, saying they’ll only be there for a bit, that it’s a distraction and that’s what he wanted, after all. Seungmin does nothing to stop them, instead nodding his head every so often, and so Minho goes.

He goes, and all three of them leave him the moment they enter. He stumbles through the rooms, greeting a few of his friends and a few members of the volleyball team, trying to make smalltalk that doesn’t revolve entirely around their games or school, and failing miserably. He catches sight of Woojin talking to one of Jisung’s friends—Changbin, he thinks—and is about to go embarrass him, when someone catches his elbow.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Sooyoung says, raising her brows high at him.

“Hey to you, too,” Minho says, letting her lead him out to the backyard, where there’s significantly less people. It’s a bit chillier outside, too, but at least it’s moderately quiet.

“I haven’t had the chance to congratulate you on getting into semis,” Sooyoung says, “so, congrats! Can’t believe they let absolute incels past prelims, now, but that’s the world we live in, I guess.”

“Thanks,” he says, though he huffs out laughter, anyway.

“No, but, really, I’m proud of you,” she says, still sounding more amused than anything. “You got into semifinals! Multitalented king!”

“Ah, thank you,” he says, pressing a hand to his heart, even though her tone’s still more sarcastic than anything else. “I’m not the only one on the team, though, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she waves a hand, “I’ve already congratulated Jisung during our shift together yesterday and I honestly don’t recognize the other twinks on your team, so I think that’s enough of that.”

“Just say you favor the girls volleyball team and go.”

“I think everyone favors them,” Sooyoung says, shrugging somewhat apologetically and he laughs. She leans her back agains the wall, her eyes flitting up to the sky, and Minho follows her movements, looking up to find it devoid of any stars. “And no, before you ask, it’s not because Jungeun’s on it.”

“Wasn’t going to, but now that you’ve said it,” he says, and she rolls her eyes and half-heartedlytries to elbow him, even as laughter spills out her mouth.

She straightens after a moment, silence falling over them, before she says, “you’ve come a long way, you know.”

Minho scoffs. “You say that as if I’m playing volleyball professionally,” he says, “it’s just high school volleyball, you know.”

“I mean it, though,” Sooyoung says, “honestly. You used to be absolute shit when you practiced with Jinsoul and Jungeun, you know.”

“I wasn’t that bad,” Minho argues, but Sooyoung raises her brows and effectively shuts him up. “I could have been worse,” he tries.

“Keep telling yourself that,” she says, patting his arm in a show of mock comfort. “I am proud of you, though. Jungeun and Jinsoul’re slinking around here somewhere, but I’m sure they’d say the same.”

“I’m really not that good a player,” Minho says, unwillingly flushing at the compliment.

“You can still get better?” Sooyoung suggests, “you can still continue playing it in, like, college, if you’re into that. I’m sure they have volleyball teams, right? They must.”

“I could,” Minho muses, before he sighs, “but I think this is more of a one time thing, you know.”

“Mhm,” she hums in response, “I’m sure college volleyball teams have cute captains, too?”

“Sooyoung,” he groans, half-heartedly covering his face with hands, more to hide his blush than anything else, but she just laughs.

Classic.

“Come on, it’s not that embarrassing,” she says, laughter marking her words, before she backtracks, “okay, maybe it’s a bit embarrassing. Can’t imagine joining some sports team just because I had a big boner for the captain, but you know what, okay. Can’t really oppress you for it.”

“It wasn’t just because of that,” Minho says, “it’s—you know, a collection of factors. Mostly not that, though.”

“Mostly not that,” she echoes, “sure, sure, whatever you say.”

He rolls his eyes, before peeking through his fingers at her. “Don’t you have Jungeun to go bother? Or Yerim, if she’s around here, somewhere.”

“As if you don’t love my company,” Sooyoung scoffs, jabbing her finger at his side. She lets up when he doesn’t react, huffing as her eyes sweep over the garden. Her smile becomes impossibly wide, the corners of her lips tugging up just enough that it’s more of a smirk than anything else. “Oh, would you look at that.”

Minho drops his hands, follows her line of sight and—oh.

“Oh,” he says, involuntarily, causing Sooyoung to laugh again, but what’s he to do? There’s Jisung, standing on the far end of the garden, illuminated by the pale streetlights, painting his hair and profile a bright yellow. He’s talking with someone Minho doesn’t recognize, laughing, and Minho’s head spins on its axis, his mind concentrating solely on Jisung. His laugh dwindles out into a smile, one that’s just as loud, one that Minho wishes was directed at him, one that makes his heart burst right out of his chest.

It’s just—sometimes, sometimes, during moments like these, it seems like Jisung’s the center of everything, really. That he’s what everything leads to, that he’s the sun that peeks through the clouds after rain has stormed the earth, that he’s the end and beginning of everything.

During moments like these, it seems like Jisung’s holy, almost, someone made to be worshipped till the end of time.

“Minho,” he hears, accompanied to a hit on his forearm, bringing him out of thoughts. He turns his head to find Sooyoung smiling teasingly at him. “You done?”

“Mhmgh,” he groans.

“Why don’t you go up there and talk to him?” Sooyoung asks, “isn’t it useless to pine like this? This is embarrassing, even for you.”

“It’s not that embarrassing,” he argues instead of explaining the whole Jisung-is-straight thing again, because he’s sure she’ll either find it extremely funny or it’ll dampen the mood completely. His eyes return to Jisung, as if on their own accord, and he watches as he laughs, again, his drink thrust in the air. He’s almost embarrassing and yet, Minho can’t help the way his heart jumps in his chest. “It could be worse. I could be acting like you before you got the courage to ask out Jungeun, after all.”

“Oh, shut up,” Sooyoung says, before she frowns, her eyes narrow and she adds, “also, uh, this isprobably the worst possible moment to say this, but I’m not entirely sure we’re dating?"

Minho huffs out laughter, his brows pulling together in confusion as he turns to look at her. “What do you mean, you’re not sure whether you’re dating? Didn’t you ask her out? On a, you know, actual date?”

“Yes,” Sooyoung says, squinting off into the distance before she turns back to him, "but the wording was very vague? And you know, I'd approach the topic again, but it’s, uh, kind of humiliating, really.”

“Just talk to her," Minho says, thinking back to how the two act around each other. He knows she’s head over heels for Jungeun, but the reverse is true, too—Jungeun looks at Sooyoung with incredibly soft eyes, her mouth always curved into a softer smile. “I’m sure she feels the same.”

“Maybe,” Sooyoung allows, clasping her hands together. “If it’s that easy, why don’t you talk to Jisung, too? And, you know, confess?”

“I,” Minho says, swallows, hates the way everything seems to fall on top of his shoulders. “I don’t think he feels the same,” he says, “so it’s, you know, kind of pointless.”

“Bullshit,” Sooyoung says. He glances at her to find her mouth tugged into a frown. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” she continues, and his heart twists painfully in his chest. “Homeboy’s in it for real.”

He swallows, finding no words to refute her. He knows it’s not true, but he can’t stop himself from imagining that it is, anyway. His eyes find Jisung, still smiling brightly, looking like the moon and all the stars and everything else.

His eyes find Jisung and he watches as Haseul loops her arms around him, watches as she presses her lips to his cheek and the two of them burst out laughing, their laughter echoing throughout the empty sky.

“I, uh,” he says, knowing it’s a wake-up call, one to remind him of reality, but he feels so stupid, as he always does. His heart breaks in half, then more, then more, shattering into tiny pieces thatseem to scatter all over the grass. “I’m going back inside.”

“Huh?” Sooyoung asks, brows pulled together, though she stands up, too. “Why? I thought—”

“—can we just go inside?” He asks, his eyes catching on Haseul and Jisung again. “Please?”

She frowns, though she nods as she hooks their elbows, letting him usher her back inside.

.

“Minho!”

He stops in his tracks, turns his head—and there he is, Jisung, standing behind the counter, grinning at him. He’s got a black cap pulled over his head, a few stray strands of hair slipping out from underneath it, and Minho’s fingers itch to tuck them back under the cap—or, better yet, pull the whole thing off. 

He doesn’t, of course.

“Hey,” he says instead, approaching the counter. He can’t see Hyunjin anywhere, anyway—he must be running late. “I thought you weren’t going to be working today?”

“And here I was, thinking you came in just to see me,” Jisung teases and Minho rolls his eyes, hoping it looks casual enough.

“Yeah, yeah, you wish,” he says, pushing his heart further down in his chest. “I’m serious, though. I thought you said you didn’t work Saturdays?”

“I don’t,” Jisung says, even though it’s Saturday. He taps his marker on the counter, somewhat in rhythm to the song playing in the background of the café. “I’m just filling in for Jinsoul. I’m about to finish, anyway, so it’s fine.”

“That’s good,” Minho says, involuntarily mirroring Jisung’s smile. “Can’t miss today’s practice, after all.”

Jisung laughs—loud, genuine, and Minho pretends everything's fine.

“Coach did say that, didn’t he,” Jisung says, huffing. The movement of the marker stops, before resuming even more than before. “I think he’s going to have us running drills all practice today.”

Minho groans. “But we won," he says, “and qualified for the semis. Can’t we, uh, not do that?”

“He doesn't want us to slack off," Jisung says, smiling. He’s always smiling, so serene, so casually beautiful, and Minho wants to hate him for it. “We do want to make it to finals, after all. It shouldn’t be too bad.” He waves a hand, dismissing the topic. “We did win, though,” he adds, his voice slightly giddier, and Minho can’t help but grin widely, “and you did good, on the game yesterday.”

“It was just a practice game,” he says, “and it could have been better.” Jisung waits, expectant. "Fine, okay, God. Thank you. It’s not as if you didn't do really good yesterday, either.”

And—it’s true, Minho thinks, remembering how the game progressed. Jisung had been full of energy, determined to win after missing a good week and a half of practices, and it paid off. The rest of the team had worked hard, too, and during all five sets they played, straining to make each shot and not let the ball hit the floor of the court.

“I was the king of the court, if you will,” Jisung says, smiling when Minho lets embarrassed laughter spill out his mouth. “Oh, um, I wanted to ask—did you leave early yesterday? I tried to find you, but I couldn’t, and Woojin didn't know where you were."

“Oh,” Minho says, ignoring how his heart soars at the implication that Jisung was looking for him. He swallows, chews on the inside of his cheek, before he says, “I did leave early. Was a bit tired and all that.”

“Mhm,” Jisung hums, nodding, his eyes focused on Minho, who starts feeling more and more flustered. “I hope you feel better today? And that you got some rest, too.”

“Yeah, yeah, I, uh, I did,” Minho manages, before he shakes his head. “Did you want something from me? Yesterday, I mean. Is that why you were looking for me?”

He regrets it the moment he says it. It’s stupid, Jisung probably just wanted to talk about the game, like he always does. Maybe wanted to gather the team together one last time before the party ended and talk or whatever. It has nothing to do with Minho and the way his heart is racing.

“Uh,” Jisung says, his fingers resorting to tapping on the counter. Minho wants to grab his hand, to stop the movement, but instead he stuffs his own hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Kinda, yeah, but it’s fine. It wasn’t anything important.” He shakes his head, readjusts the cap of his hat, and says, “anyway, what can I get you?”

“Oh,” Minho says, just now remembering he's supposed to be ordering coffee. He taps on the counter, looking over Jisung’s head to survey the different drinks offered, as if he doesn't know which one he wants. “Uhh, can I have a, uh, medium latte?”

“Coming right up,” Jisung says, smiling, his marker skidding across the coffee cup he picks up. Minho reaches for his wallet—“oh, you don't have to. It’s on the house.”

“Oh,” Minho says, his mouth dry. Not even Seokjin gives him free coffee whenever he comes here, regardless of the fact that they’re related and Minho should be getting at least a discount. “I—I can pay, it’s no problem.”

“It’s fine,” Jisung says, though he doesn't move to prepare the coffee. He fiddles with the cup in his hands, looking like he’s gathering his words. “I, uh, if you were into it, I finish my shift in a few minutes. We could, uh, sit together?”

He looks a bit nervous then and Minho tilts his head, confused. The corners of his lips tug into a smile involuntarily and he’s about to say _sure, why not,_ when he remembers he’s meeting Hyunjin. He deflates, his shoulder sagging, “I can’t,” he says, “I’m supposed to be reviewing for exams with Hyunjin, today.”

Jisung nods, before he straightens and a smile works its way onto his face. “Another time, then,” he says.

“Another time,” Minho agrees.

.

Minho tries not to hold his face in his hands as Johnny argues with the rest of the student council over the theme for prom, which they still haven’t decided, even though it’s been nearly three weeks. They’re running out of time for it, too—the very reason they’re meeting this early on a Saturday.

Even with this extra meeting, it’s not like one of the student council members is more productive than usual. Most of them are barely listening to Johnny’s endless rambling, some half-heartedly making an attempt to counter it. Woojin’s the only one sitting up in his seat, though even he looks barely awake, and Minho just wants to leave, tired out of his damn mind.

He can’t even go home, not yet, considering right after the meeting finishes, he has to race to the bus that’s going to take him and the rest of the volleyball team to where the semifinals are taking place. His leg is bouncing up and down and he’s unable to calm himself down, too much excitement intertwined with nerves strumming in his mind. He hates that he’s stuck in the meeting, too, especially since they’re not getting anything done, especially since the rest of the team is busy getting in some final practice before the game.

Minho grits his teeth, tuning out Johnny as he argues for the hundredth shitty prom theme, now, instead letting his mind roll over the events of the past week. He’s barely been able to rest, what with their consistent and much more tiring practices, in preparation for semifinals—not to mention their teachers deciding it’s a great week to assign an endless amount of homework and essays and whatever else they could think of.

And—and there’s that thing with Jisung.

Minho taps his fingers on his desk in thought, completely missing the dirty look Woojin sends him. It’s a bit peculiar, really, but Jisung’s been stopping by to talk to him more and more, lately, asking him to get coffee together or catch a movie or a variety of other things. He’s been much more affectionately lately, too, which easily makes Minho’s heart flare up, his mind already working to reimagine Jisung doing the same in a number of scenarios, ones that involve him being gay.

Even so, he hasn’t been able to say yes just yet, having to ask for rain check after rain check after rain check because of his studies. It’s—probably for the best, he muses, remembering Seungmin’s words. A little distance should do him and his restless heart good, even if it still beats at impossible speeds whenever Jisung grins at him. 

His mind goes back to when he’d taken Jisung’s home, playing back a highlight reel consisting of the way Jisung had gripped his hand, softly, the way he’d smile when the bus rolled to his stop, the way he’d watched Minho, fond. Minho’s face involuntarily flushes just at the thought of Jisung’s smile and he clears his throat, hoping the rest of the council is too occupied to notice. He flattens the page of his notebook with his fingers, slowly, knowing that the way his heart races, the way his head feels dizzy and the way his stomach is filled with butterflies isn’t ever going to be resolved—not with Jisung, at least.

It’s—it’s still sad, obviously. It still strikes a chord in his heart, one that echoes and bounces off from his ribs, reverberating in his torso. There’s still a pain in his chest, one that’s a bit more dull than it had been, but strong, nonetheless. He still lets himself feel sad, in the early hours of the morning or late hours of the night, when the moon swings just high enough to illuminate his room.

But—he likes being Jisung’s friend. Enjoys the way Jisung talks to him, bright and without a care in the world. Enjoys Jisung’s presence, too, even if he is straight and a weeb and should be oppressed, according to Hyunjin and just about everyone else. Enjoys spending time with him, even if it’s on late night buses with rain surrounding them on all sides, even if—

—Woojin jams him in the elbow with his finger. He turns to him, eyebrows skewed down over his eyes and mouth open, ready to berate him, but Woojin just cocks his head towards the empty room.

Minho hadn’t even realized the council had drawn to a close.

“Oh,” he says, softly shuffling together the papers on top of his desk. “I—uh, did we, did we decide on anything?”

“No,” Woojin says, amused, pushing himself up. “Hyejoo decided it’s over and left, and everyone else just kind of followed. You were so far gone you didn’t even notice, you loser.”

“And we still haven’t decided?” Minho says with a frown, standing up and haphazardly stuffing all his belongings into his bag before he maneuvers his way through the classroom, stopping at the whiteboard. He looks around for a marker, pouting when he doesn’t find one. “Maybe we should just go with one of Johnny’s.”

“Genuinely do not think that’s your best idea,” Woojin says, watching as Minho itches towards the teacher’s desk, glancing over the supplies stored in small cups. “I will get berated if I don’t submit something soon, but literally no one has a good idea.”

“Just go with something basic,” Minho says, grinning when he manages to find a marker. “Fucking magic forest or whatever. Magic garden, maybe. Definitely not wild western, though, since that just screams homophobic.”

“Noted,” Woojin says. “What are you doing?”

“Spreading gay propaganda,” Minho responds, tongue stuck between his teeth as he writes on the board. The finished product reads _f(hetero)=a_ _2_ _\+ 2ab + b_ _2_ _— (a+b)_ _2_. “And they say gays can’t do math.”

“You’re barely passing math.”

“No one asked, asshole,” Minho says, throwing the marker onto the desk, completely ignoring it when it rolls off one side, clattering onto the floor. They exit the class, Woojin closing the door, and Minho sighs. “You know what, gays can’t do math. What was I thinking? I should have written _be gay, do crime—_ or, or, _oppress hetties, love kitties._ Dori, Soonie and Doongie would have loved that, I’m sure.”

“They wouldn’t even see it,” Woojin says, “and, besides, it’s going to be wiped right off before classes on Monday, you know.”

“Maybe,” Minho says, smiling. He’s sure he looks like a child that’s gotten away with something, but for once, he doesn’t mind, even as Woojin narrows his eyes at him, trying to figure out what he’s so smug about. “Maybe not.”

“Minho,” he says, carefully, biting back a smile, “did you—did you write it using a permanent marker?”

Minho can’t hold his cool, his smile spreading wide and they both can’t help but laugh, even as Woojin moves his hands to poke at Minho’s sides, prompting much more high-pitched laughter that bounces off the walls, that fills the hallways up to the ceilings.

“You absolute heathen,” he says, even as Minho is gasping for air, even as he trips over his own feet and ends up on the floor, still laughing. “You know it’s not that hard to wipe it off, either? You do know that, right?”

“Don’t ruin it!” Minho says, his voice rising up to nearly a screech even as his laughter quiets down, as his movements stop. He still doesn’t get up from the floor, waiting for Woojin to offer his hand. “Let me live my dream of vandalizing school property for at least a few moments before you have to go and ruin it.”

“That’s your dream?” Woojin teases, before his resolve breaks and he extends a hand to Minho, who grasps it and lets Woojin pull him to his feet, off-handedly dusting off his clothes.

“You’re just too boring to have a rebellious phase,” Minho says, knocking his shoulder into Woojin, “but that is okay. Just be who you are. You’ll do fine, I’m sure.”

“That really means a lot, coming from the biggest loser I know,” Woojin says, reaching to ruffle Minho’s hair.

“I’m definitely not the biggest loser you know,” Minho says, slipping just out of Woojin’s grasp and picking up his pace down the hall. Woojin rolls his eyes. “That’s, like, Hyunjin. Or, or, Seungmin. Or—I mean, you count as well, don’t you? Then it’s definitely you. No questions about it.”

“You’re insufferable,” Woojin calls after him, “come back here, I’m not going to hurt you. Minho, come on, this is embarrassing.”

“I really don’t trust you in the slightest,” Minho says, turning on his heel to face Woojin, walking backwards. He’s bound to trip over something in just a few moments and they both know it. “I really don’t deserve this fate! I’ve never done anything wrong in my life.”

“You were just boasting about getting to vandalize school property,” Woojin points out.

“I’ve never done anything wrong in my life, besides vandalize school property,” Minho amends, “which, honestly? Is government owned, anyway, and as a citizen, it is my duty to rebel against it when it’s shit and it is, because we live in a capitalistic society, so naturally—”

“—you don’t have to recite what Seungmin says back to me,” Woojin says. “I’ve been there. I’ve heard the same communist spiel he always gives.”

“I’m not reciting,” Minho says, even though he is. “I’ve learned! These are my own, big boy thoughts, just slightly influenced by Seungmin—okay, majorly influenced by him, but it’s not plagiarism, though, so it’s totally fine.”

“Sure, sure,” Woojin waves a hand, adjusting his bag on his shoulder. “I’m sure Seungmin’d be glad to hear you listen to him, though. You don’t even listen to me and I’m the oldest.”

“The oldest and the most boring,” Minho says, frowning, narrowing his eyes. He stops in his steps, waiting for Woojin to catch up so he can jab his finger at him, semi-threateningly and add, “I’m not going to listen to some hag go on and on about the same thing every week.”

Woojin rolls his eyes. “Don’t you have a game to get to? Before they like, throw you off the team or whatever?”

“Uh,” Minho says, all his nerves bouncing up immediately at the mention of the game. He’d forgotten about it, truth be told, and now he grew slightly frantic as his eyes searched for a clock somewhere in the halls. He reaches for his phone, gaze still jumping over the lockers, passing the classrooms and peering at the walls, only to come up fruitless.

He pulls his phone up to his face and, yeah, he’s definitely late.

“Uh, this is bad,” he says and Woojin’s watching him carefully, before he cocks his head to the side.

“Can they actually leave without you?” He says, “because if yeah, I can give you a lift—”

“—there you are!”

Minho startles, tearing his gaze away from his phone to settle on Jisung, who’s smiling brightly although a bit nervously as he nears them.

“God, I’m so sorry,” he blurts out before he can stop himself, “I really thought I had more time and I didn’t want to be late and—”

“—it’s fine,” Jisung cuts him off with, a laugh spinning out his lips. “We are a bit behind schedule, but we were going to leave earlier than we needed to, anyway, so it’s fine. Or, uh, it’s fine as long as we leave within the next few minutes, but.”

“Oh,” Minho says, relieved, letting the tension slip off his shoulder. “Oh, that’s—great.”

“It is, but we really have to go,” Jisung says, still smiling. His eyes pass over Woojin and he asks, “do you need a ride to the game? I’m sure we can find some space for you on the bus.”

“I’ll be fine,” Woojin says, sending a mock salute and it takes all of Minho’s willpower not to deck him right there and then. “I’ll see you both at the game! Good luck!”

He spins around on his heel before disappearing down the hall, Minho’s eyes still stuck on him, until he feels Jisung grasp his hand in his.

“Come on,” he says, one more time, laughter on his breath. His voice is low, soft, and Minho’s once again reminded to that night, to the bus stop, and he hates how his heart seems to stop in his chest. Jisung has to tug him forward before his feet cooperate and he starts walking, though they’re still holding hands.

Why are they holding hands? Minho’s not sure, but he is sure his face is flushed, anyway, and he feels a bit shaky, a bit unsteady on his feet.

“I’m kinda glad you’re running a bit late,” Jisung says, after a moment, and Minho can only nod, confused. “I—uh, I wanted to talk to you, actually.”

“You did?” Minho asks, confused. “You could have messaged me.”

“I feel like this is something for, uh—something to talk about in person?” Jisung says, tripping over his words. His pace has slowed down to a more leisurely one, even though they have nearly no time to waste, and he seems to be unconsciously swinging their linked hands together. “I, uh, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Okay,” Minho says, slowly.

“Okay, so, okay,” Jisung says, taking a deep breath, and Minho furrows his brows. “I—we have the game today, yes?”

“The semifinals,” he says, frowning. “Are you—is everything okay? You did remember we have the semis today, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Jisung says, burning red now. “But, uh, we have the game, and there’s that small party after it, right?” Minho nods, and Jisung takes that as a cue to continue, “I, uh, I wanted to ask if you’d like to, uh, wear my jacket? My letterman jacket, I mean. During the party.”

“Your letterman jacket,” Minho repeats, his footsteps slowing as they near the exit. “I—I have my own?”

“Yeah,” Jisung says, and he looks almost hopeful when he meets Minho’s eyes, only serving to make Minho more confused. This—he hates moments like these, the most, because he can almost convince himself Jisung’s not straight, can almost convince himself his feelings are returned. “Yeah, but I mean, like, you know.” He makes some vague hand gestures, and Minho shakes his head, his mouth falling open.

“I—I mean, if you want,” he says, finally, knowing full well his cheeks are red. He presses his lips into a thin line, his eyes flitting up towards the ceiling because Jisung must be doing this to be nice, really, must be doing this because—oh. Because Haseul must have told him, after all, hadn’t she? About Minho’s feelings. And—and, as Hyunjin said, Jisung’s an overly supportive jock who doesn’t know when to stop. “I mean,” he says, feeling nerves wrap themselves around his bones, because he needs to say this, even if he desperately wants to keep living in the fantasy that Jisung is head over heels for him, “it’s, uh, haha, no homo, you know. Yeah, yeah. Just, uh, just bros being bros.”

Jisung stays silent for a long time, his grip on Minho’s hand slowly loosening. “Oh,” he says, finally, and Minho feels too embarrassed to even meet his eyes. “I—oh,” he tries, again, “I—uh, we should probably get to the bus before it’s too late.”

“I—okay,” Minho says, confused. Jisung lets go off his hand completely, pushing open the doors. “Are you—uh, is everything okay?”

He looks up at him, then, finally meeting Jisung’s eyes. Jisung’s, who looks a bit sadder than before, though he still smiles at him.

“It’s fine,” he says, “we don’t have to talk about it. I got—I got the hint.”

“Okay,” Minho says, nodding slowly. Maybe Jisung was just amped to show his support, even like this, and Minho readies to say that it’s fine, that it’s not anything to worry over or be sad over, really, but before he can, Jisung’s already out the door.

He frowns, though he follows him to the bus, anyway.

.

“I hate feeling anything,” Hyunjin declares, sinking down next to Minho on the sofa, throwing his feet up onto the coffee table. Minho sends him a look, though Hyunjin pretends he hasn’t seen, instead picking up a random magazine and carding through it.

“Yeah, felt that,” Minho says, going back to staring at the television screen, at some nature documentary that’s been playing for the past hour. It’s been over a week since the semis—which they passed, by some miracle, securing a place in the finals. The finals, which are to take place in just a few days. Minho’s stressed, a bit nervous at the prospect, but what’s he to do about it.

It’s not like he can talk to Jisung to relax or get rid of his worries, anyway.

“It’s truly useless,” Hyunjin continues, “like, what’s the point? Would love to be, like a rock. Or—dare I say it, straight.”

“We both know that’s not true,” Minho says.

“Yeah,” Hyunjin says, then frowns, scrunching up his face as he throws the magazine aside. “God, I must have blacked out. Let’s all forget I said that, hm? Top ten embarrassing moments of my own life, huh.”

“Hyunjin, shut up,” Woojin says from his place on the floor, and Minho doesn’t have to even look at him to know his frown is deepening. He feels a bit of guilt pooling at the bottom of his stomach and tries his hardest to ignore it. “What are you doing here, anyway? Minho’s the only one who’s supposed to be actually invested in helping me and the only thing you’re doing is distracting him.”

“No, no,” Hyunjin says, waving a hand, “first of all, I’m here for moral support. Second, we’re just having a good old moping sesh, watching a documentary on, uh,” he squints at the screen, at the fish swimming on it, trying to pinpoint a species before he gives up, “on fish. No one’s distracting anyone.”

“It’s on coral trout,” Minho says, pointedly, “and we’re not having a moping session. I’m fine. The two of you—and Seungmin, and Jeongin, too—don’t need to coddle me.”

“We’re not coddling you,” Hyunjin starts, “but, if you’d like to cuddle a lovely puppy—I do have a whole Kkami waiting back at my home, and it’s basically scientifically proven that cuddling her boosts morale, so the world is at your feet, if you really think about it.”

“You don’t need to advertise your dog at every moment,” Woojin cuts in, “but that’s not the point. We’re not trying to, uh, to coddle you. Just, you know, remind you that we’re your friends and are always here for you, and if you want to talk about what you’re—what you’re going through, know that we’re always here to hear you out?”

“I’m not going through anything,” Minho says, though the sadness and rejection that pools at the bottom of his stomach says otherwise. He ignores it, shifting in his seat. “I’m just a bit bummed out, I guess. Also I’m kind of sorry for not letting you work, Woojin, but you did bring this on yourself by inviting me here, so.”

“It’s fine, I don’t mind your company,” Woojin says, meeting Minho’s eyes with a smile, “I do kind of mind Hyunjin’s, but that’s because he’s Hyunjin.”

“Yeah,” Minho agrees, ignoring Hyunjin’s cries of protest. “I am serious, though. You don’t need to feel obligated to, uh, spend time with us—or, me, more specifically, I guess—because of, uh—”

“—I’m your friend,” Woojin interrupts him, “I asked you to come over because I like spending time with you, because I want to spend time with you, not because I’m obligated to. Also—uh, since we’re on the topic, if you want to talk about what you’re—what you’re going through, know that I’m always here to hear you out?”

“Thanks,” Minho says, letting the corners of his lips tug into a smile on their own volition. “I’ll pass on that, for now, but maybe sometime. Probably not, but maybe.”

Woojin nods, his eyes briefly narrowing, before he glances at Hyunjin. “And, you, too, Hyunjin. If there’s anything you’d like to talk about, then we can. If you want to rant or vent or whatever.”

“Loving these validation teas for me,” Hyunjin says, “but, sadly, I do kin Minho on this one. So maybe another time. You better keep your offer valid, weatherboy.”

“Will do,” Woojin says, even as he rolls his eyes. “Anyway, do either of you have any ideas for the prom theme? Please? My status as student council president kind of depends on it.”

“Coral reef,” Hyunjin says, staring at the television screen, somehow managing to duck when Woojin throws a pen at him. “Hey! It’s probably one of my better ideas.”

“That’s because the only other thing you suggested was, and I quote, _playground teas,_ and I still have no clue what that means,” Woojin says, “but whatever. I do have to submit it before the end of today or else I—actually, I’m not sure what’s happening if I miss the deadline. Maybe we won’t have prom?”

“Just make the theme, like, gay or something,” Minho says, “you could just base it around _Love, Simon_ and honestly that’d be iconic. I’d even fuck around and go to prom if you did that.”

“Wait, you’re not going?” Woojin asks, frowning.

“For the record, I’m not going either,” Hyunjin pipes up. “Jeongin’s skipping, too, for obvious reasons. But maybe Minnie’s going? Not sure, considering we haven’t really had the best contact lately.”

“Is that what you’re, hm, feeling a bit down about?” Woojin asks.

Hyunjin squints at him. “Maybe,” he says, “but I’m definitely not going to elaborate and _will_ keep avoiding it till the end of time. So, yeah. That’s that on that. Back to your disastrous prom planning.”

“What about like, starry night? Plagiarize Van Gogh and be done with it,” Minho says, “or like, you’re an art bitch, right? Just do Picasso and fuck around with geometry.”

“You could just make the decorations shapes…very low effort, but has the potential to look nice,” Hyunjin says, letting his eyes close. “I can already see it. All the hetties would hate it because there would be a rainbow on every wall and they’d have eighteen aneurysms at the mere implication of gay rights. All the gays would finally have rights. Ideal solution, if you think about it.”

“What we deserve,” Woojin says, scribbling down something on his paper before he taps his pen against it. “God, I wish our student council wasn’t full of degenerates that do no work, but here we are. The only valid member is Hyejoo.”

Hyunjin nods his agreement and Minho finds himself doing the same, before he remembers that he’s on the student council as well and sits up with a start, a frown already pulling on his lips.

“I hope you just forgot to mention me,” he says, “wait, no, that’s even worse.”

“You’re kind of valid,” Woojin amends, “but you still don’t do shit, you know?”

“I make Johnny shut up!” Minho says, “that’s got to be worth something. You don’t want to listen to his het ass spew bullshit for the entirety of the meeting, do you?”

“Okay,” Woojin says, “while I do appreciate that and you being there in general, you’re still not doing any actual work? And I could, you know, use some help or something.”

“You could have enlisted Seungmin to help you, then,” Minho says, crossing his arms as he sinks lower into the couch. “He’d do it, I’m sure. He’s horny for like, planning and all.”

“He’s also overworked all the time,” Hyunjin points out, “probably for the best that he gets some, I don’t know, rest, maybe? I, for one, think that’s a funky concept for him.”

“That’s why Minho’s on the student council, not him,” Woojin says, before he sighs. “What if I just chose like, black and white? It’s simple, low-budget, we can get some, like, I don’t know, black and white balloons? One of those, whatever the fuck they’re called, uh, you know.”

“A balloon arch?” Minho asks, his eyes narrowed, lips twisting into a grimace even as Woojin nods. “No offense, but that sounds—really bad. I’d go as far as to say that even Johnny had better ideas than that.”

“It is kinda homophobic,” Hyunjin says, even as he swings a hand over Minho’s shoulder, tugging him closer. He throws a hand out, gesturing vaguely, and Minho doesn’t even pretend he has any idea what Hyunjin’s doing. “But, imagine it. It’d be so bad and we could crash it, spray paint rainbows on the walls, gay graffiti, whatever the fuck we want.”

“Not really, but that’s the spirit,” Woojin says, “fuck, I don’t have a single good idea.”

“It’s just prom,” Hyunjin says, “not even, like, a fun, gay prom. Just say fuck it and don’t do it. What are they going to do? Fire you? Expel you? They can’t do that—can they?”

“Of course they can’t,” Minho says, before he pushes Hyunjin further down the couch, making some space for Woojin. He pats down the cushion and Woojin looks up at him, unsure. “Literally just ignore it. I haven’t done any part of my job as vice president, and I haven’t gotten into hot shit, so.”

“That’s because I always vouch for you,” Woojin says, even as he joins them on the couch, letting Minho immediately throw his legs over his lap, only giving him an unimpressed look. “Who’s going to vouch for me? Definitely not Johnny.”

“He could, if you pull an enemies to lovers,” Hyunjin says, grinning.

“Never want to hear you speak, ever again,” Woojin says, “you’re an insufferable twink, you know that?”

“I think we’re _all_ insufferable twinks,” Hyunjin says, his laughter turning into a screech when Woojin whacks him with a pillow and Minho can’t help but laugh, even as he’s caught in the crosshairs.

Minho can’t help but laugh, every thought that’s been spinning in his mind, about Jisung, about the volleyball finals in less than a week, about everything in between, forgotten.

.

Minho doesn’t get to forget it for long, of course, because before long the week starts again and that means practice, and for some reason they’re hellishly long, each and every time. It’s particularly bad on Wednesday—especially for Minho, who’d stayed up till a good five am the day before to try and learn whatever the fuck trigonometry was just to flunk the test, anyway.

It’s particularly bad on Wednesday, because Seungmin’s stressing out about his SAT subject tests or whatever and Woojin’s stressing about getting responses from some colleges he’s applied to, and—and, yeah.

“Higher, Minho,” Jeongguk whines and Minho rolls his eyes, even as he sets the ball again. They’ve been practicing this for what seems like hours and Minho’s arms were already sore after the practice on Monday. He’s just about ready to call it a day but, even as the ball lands on the other side of the net, Jeongguk’s lips jut out in a pout.

Minho sighs, loudly. For as much as Jeongguk reminds him of Jeongin, Minho’s a lot less endeared by him and his act, especially as irritation from flunking his math test and screwing up for over half of the practice flares up in his chest.

“What now?” He asks defensively as he catches the ball thrown his way by Yukhei, “it was high enough.”

“It wasn’t,” Jeongguk says, still pouting. “Can you do it again, just one more time? You just have to get your form a bit better, I think, and that should do it—”

“—I’ve got my form fine, thanks,” Minho says. Jeongguk means well, he knows, and Jeongguk’s been practicing volleyball for much, much longer than Minho has, but he can’t stop the way his eyes flit to the ceiling in absolute exasperation. “I can’t keep setting the ball for you, over and over again.”

“That’s kind of the point of this, though,” Jeongguk says and Minho inhales sharply. “Just once more, a bit higher and closer. You’ve almost got it, really, just move your arms a bit higher—oh, if you want, I could demonstrate, and—”

“—Jeongguk,” Minho says, sharply, pressing on the ball he’s holding. “I’m not going to keep setting it for you, over and over again. I’m doing it _fine._ Jump higher or something if you’re not able to spike it.”

“I—I can’t spike it well enough if the ball’s not angled well,” Jeongguk says, his form deflating. “I mean—I could spike it, but it won’t be that good and that makes it a bit useless and, and, I mean. Your form is usually good! I don’t know why, why, uh, your form is, um, not that well, right now.”

Minho’s eyes flutter shut and he presses a hand to the bridge of his nose, swallowing, trying to push his irrational anger done and not succeeding in the least.

“My form is _fine,_ ” he says, forcefully, so much so that Jeongguk’s frown deepens. “I know I haven’t been playing volleyball for a long time, but that doesn’t mean you’re supposed to come here and keep slamming me about it.”

“I’m not—I’m not trying to slam you about it,” Jeongguk says. Minho catches the way his voice wavers and he feels bad, feels something like regret lighting up some obscure corner of his brain, but everything seems to be pushing his patience. “I’m just, I’m trying to help you get better for the finals.”

“Well, you’re not—”

“—I see we’re living it up here,” Jaehyun says, swinging an arm around Jeongguk and off-handedly pulling him close and patting his cheek. The action makes the corner of Jeongguk’s lips pull up in a smile and that does it. Minho slows feels the heavy annoyance leak out of him, replaced in a moment by regret.

His arms fall to his sides as he lets Jaehyun walk over and pluck the ball out of his hands.

“Take a break, mhm?” Jaehyun says, his voice teetering right on the line between sharp and worried, maybe, and Minho tries not to feel worse. “I’ll switch out for you for a bit.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Minho says, pulling on his bottom lip with his teeth. He glances at Jeongguk, whose eyes are open wide, brows raised high, as he’s standing on his toes, and Minho can’t force an apology past his lips. Instead, he lets his mouth close, a sigh slipping out of it, before he leaves the gym.

He finds his way outside and hunches his shoulders at the chill that runs over his skin from the wind grazing his bare skin just below where his shorts end. He twists his arms around himself before he sighs and finds a place to sit down on the steps.

Minho takes a deep breath, letting embarrassment burrow itself deeper in his bones. It’s—it’s not Jeongguk he’s mad at, even if he’s a little annoying at times, a little loud, a little brash, but that doesn’t make Minho letting everything out on him fair. It doesn’t make it fair that Minho was getting angry, getting annoyed by the smallest quirks, that he was going to let his voice raise in volume till it was loud enough to make the windows burst.

Right now, the only thing he’s about to do is cry.

Or, well. To be more accurate, he wants to scream, loud, let it rip out his lungs. He wishes he was eleven again, and Seokjin fifteen, and that they could do as they used to, bike out a bit out of town and scream their hearts out, releasing everything they let wind up in their bodies to the wind.

They don’t do that anymore.

Maybe it’s because they’ve grown a bit apart. Maybe it’s because Seokjin’s twenty-one, now, and has better things to do than hang out with his still underage brother. Maybe it’s a bit of both, really.

Minho sighs, pressing the balls of his palms into his eyes. It feels as if the gravity of the situation’s just hitting him, as if he’s just realizing that he’s not in middle school anymore, that next year, he’s going to be graduating, going to be leaving for college and it’s—well, it’s terrifying, really, if he thinks about it for more than a minute. It feels as if he’s just realizing that, in a couple of months, Woojin’s going to be graduating, going to be leaving for college and that’s heartbreaking, more than anything.

_That_ does make him want to cry.

It’s—he doesn’t think about it often, because it makes him remember how shitty he felt when Seokjin went to college, just as Minho was starting his freshman year. He doesn’t think about it often, because his heart freezes in his chest with panic and worry and everything else, because, because, because.

He pulls his legs up to his chest, rests his forehead on his knees. Hyunjin’s the one who usually wraps an arm around his shoulders, who mutters kind words into the space between them, but Hyunjin’s not here. Hyunjin’s not here and Minho’s missing out on practice, and it’s getting worse the more he waits, but.

“Minho?”

Fuck.

Minho lifts his head, turns to look back at the doors to find Jisung standing unsurely in the threshold, holding the doors open. He’s got his letterman jacket shrugged on, his hair pushed back with a thick black headband, and Minho hates that even now, his heart jumps in his chest at the sight.

“Everything okay?” Jisung asks, his voice soft as he takes a few steps forward, sinking down to sit next to Minho. He knocks their knees together and Minho huffs, though he can’t hide his smile. “You’ve been gone a bit.”

“Just needed some air,” Minho says as he runs his hand under his nose, before he moves to push himself up, “we can go back, now.”

“Um,” Jisung starts, as his hand touches Minho’s knee, effectively stopping him from getting up. He stares at it, intently, before he withdraws it and clears his throat. “Uh, don’t you want to talk about it, maybe?”

Minho swallows as he look at Jisung, unsure what to think of him coming out here when he hasn’t talked much to Minho for almost two weeks. There’s something rude, something cutting on the edge of his tongue, but—but.

“It’s, uh, it’s nothing serious,” Minho says, his gaze slipping down to his hands. He twists them together, before he unravels them and presses down at his knuckles, one by one, letting them crack in the space between them. “I’m just—I mean, it’s a bit of everything, you know?”

“Mhm,” Jisung hums in response, “yeah, I get that. Do you, do you, maybe want to skip the rest of practice?”

“As enticing as leaving practice is, I just know I’ll regret it on Friday when I like, mess up the ultimate serve or whatever,” Minho says, “and I’ll be fine, really.”

“You won’t mess up,” Jisung says, his hand slinking out of his pocket to race on the skin of his knee, and Minho thinks that he wants to still the movement with his hands, wants to hold them the way they had, a few times before, wants to, wants to, wants to—but doesn’t. “But, uh, we could go get like, coffee or fries or something after practice? As, um, friends.”

Minho snorts. He’s well aware, thanks. “To cheer me up?”

“Yeah,” Jisung says, tilting his head, furrowing his brows. “To talk about it, more, if you’d want, you know? Or to, uh, distract you from it, if that’s the mood.”

“I might take you up on that,” Minho says, smiling as he knocks his shoulder into Jisung, practically shoving him, but Jisung just laughs, loud, careless as he swings an arm over Minho. It feels comfortable in the way it had before the game on finals, feels nice, and even if it’s a bit suffocating, in the way Minho feels his heart be smashed between his lungs, in the way he feels his stomach turn indefinitely, but it’s worth it, he thinks.

“That’d be nice,” Jisung says, once his laughter’s calmed down enough to let the words slip out, and he looks at Minho with such soft eyes, warm, and Minho feels something stirring deep, deep in his chest.

Minho nods, off-handedly, letting silence slip over them for a moment. Jisung looks at him, opens his mouth, closes it, his brows pulling together as he can’t seem to say whatever he wants to say. He sighs, before he pushes himself up with a start.

“Uh, everyone’s waiting for us,” Jisung says and Minho just tilts his head in question, but doesn’t get a response. “Are you, are you ready to get back to practice?”

“‘Course,” Minho says, “who else is going to mess up five serves in a row if not me?”

“You’re really not as bad at volleyball as you think you are,” Jisung says with a smile as he pushes open the doors, letting Minho in before he enters.

“It’s all part of my schtick,” Minho says, waving a hand, “my Minho brand, if you will. I can’t be good at volleyball, it ruins my, mmm, wait. If I’m not a jock but I’m not a nerd then I’m a…?”

“Well, definitely not a goth,” Jisung says and Minho gasps, mock offended.

“I _could_ be a goth,” he says, holding a hand to his chest, “you like, barely know me. Maybe I’ve been a goth all along.”

“You can’t be a goth if you’re wearing a sports uniform,” Jisung says. “Face it, you’re a jock.”

“No, that’s disgusting,” Minho says, “I can’t be a jock. It’s a betrayal to everything I stand for.”

“You could be a chad, even,” Jisung says, before he backtracks, “wait, no, that’s a compliment, isn’t it?”

“First of all, you don’t need to be a jock to be a chad, that’s um, nerd _and_ goth phobia,” Minho says, his eyes going wide as he snaps his fingers, “oh! Prep. That’s what I was looking for.”

“Please,” Jisung says, “you’re definitely not a prep.”

“You’re just jealous because you’re an incel,” Minho says, just as they stop in front of the gym, and he rests his fingers on the door handle, “sucks to suck, I guess.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Jisung says and Minho rolls his eyes, even as he pushes on the door handle, before Jisung’s fingers wrap softly around his wrist. “Can you, um, wait a minute?”

“I—uh, sure?” Minho says, looking up. He lets go off the handle and tries not to pay too much attention to how Jisung’s fingers stay wrapped around his wrist.

Jisung thumbs Minho’s skin, staring down at his hand. His touch is delicate, almost, as he brushes along the inside of his wrist, as he brushes over his pulse, and Minho wonders whether Jisung can tell how fast his heart is beating.

“I wanted to say—I wanted to apologize,” Jisung says, still absentmindedly moving his fingers over Minho’s skin. He’s looking right at Minho, though, who’s trying hard to stand his ground and not falter. “I, um, I know that after—after, well, you know, I’ve been, uh, you know.”

“Not talking to me?”

Jisung’s movements still.

“You’ve noticed?”

Minho sighs. “Yeah,” he says, softly. He wants to say it’s fine, because Jisung sounds so—so regretful, so sad, but he remembers how Jisung suddenly dropping him like that, for absolutely no reason at all, made him feel. “I—we’re friends, Jisung. Of course I’ve noticed.”

“I—yeah,” Jisung nods, slowly. “I’m, I am really sorry for the way I handled that. I should have—I mean, I should have handled it better. So, um, yeah.”

“Is that why you were trying to drag me out for something after practice?” Minho asks, amused. “An apology?”

“No—no, of course not,” Jisung says and his fingers move one last time over Minho’s first before he lets go, shoving his hands in his pockets and swallowing. He looks away from Minho’s eyes, at his feet, “I just—I mean, I missed you.”

“Oh,” Minho says and he feels something in his throat, threatening to choke him up, threatening to make him overly emotional. “I—oh.”

“Um, yeah,” Jisung says, laughing nervously. “Sorry, this is a bit much, obviously, especially considering, you know, everything, and it hasn’t been that long, so it’s kind of stupid, but—”

“—I missed you, too,” Minho says and looks up to see Jisung smiling at him as if he didn’t believe it, almost, smiling wide, smiling bright, looking like the sun, the stars, everything ethereal, everything holy, looking like the whole world spins just for him, making Minho’s heart beat unbelievably fast against his ribs, making his head spin, making his knees feel weak.

Minho smiles back, knowing he doesn’t look a fraction as breathtaking as Jisung.

.

“So,” Jisung starts, “do you want to talk about it?”

“Um,” Minho says, off-handedly stirring his iced coffee with his straw. He can think of about five other things right off the top of his head that are better than this, but. “If you don’t mind?”

“I don’t,” Jisung says, smiling lightly, “I’m all ears.”

Minho nods, trying to figure out how to put everything he’s feeling into words. He taps his fingers on the table, unsteadily, and Jisung extends his own hand, palm up, flat against the table, ready for Minho to take, if he wanted to.

Against his better judgement, he does.

Jisung’s hand is warm around his, his thumb rubbing over Minho’s knuckles smoothly, and it’s comforting, it’s soothing, calming. Minho thinks he could get used to this.

“It’s, um, okay,” Minho says, closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. “Sometimes, I get very stressed out about the future and all that? I mean, it’s—it’s college and my future career, and things like that, and I’ve just—I’ve got no clue what I want to do.”

“You still have time,” Jisung says, gently, his thumb running circular motions against Minho’s hand. He gives it a soft squeeze, “you don’t have to make a decision now.”

“No, but I’ll have to make it next year,” Minho says, “sooner than that, even. I have to make some sort of choice now or something and I don’t know what I want to do, and this decides my whole life, and, and—God, sorry, I shouldn’t, uh, I shouldn’t be dropping all of this on you.”

“I asked,” Jisung points out, “don’t feel bad for, um, for sharing, I guess?”

“Yeah, but,” _but we’re not that close_ rests on the tip of his tongue. Minho shakes his head, unsure what to say, “it’s—I’m, you know, just. Running my mouth.”

“Don’t you do that everyday?” Jisung asks, smiling cheekily, and Minho kicks him under the table. “Okay, okay, sorry, God. I’m just saying, you don’t have to apologize for confiding in me after I let you—well, confide in me.”

“Okay,” Minho says, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, “but like, you get the whole of it, right? It’s just—I mean, it’s mostly that everything is uncertain and it’s, um, my future, I guess, which is pretty exciting, in that not at all exciting way, and um, yeah. I just—I guess I don’t want anything to change, which I get is the teen cliché, but like…yeah.”

“Mhm,” Jisung hums, nodding slowly, “I get that? You still have a bit of time to, uh, adjust to all the change that’s going to be coming up?”

“I—not really,” Minho says, “or—well, with most things, I will have time, but it’s—one of my, uh, closest friends from when I was little is graduating this year and, I don’t know, I guess it’s only now settling in that it’s all actually happening? That he’s graduating and next year, that’ll be me, and who knows what will happen, you know?”

Jisung nods and the movement of his thumb slows over Minho’s hand as he tugs close his drink—some iced tea, with orange or ginger or something of the sort—and takes a sip through his straw, pensive. Minho finds himself regretting how much he’s talked, how much he’s said and he sinks a bit lower in his seats, wanting to wither away. He feels a bit too vulnerable, a bit too open, and this was definitely, definitely a bad idea.

“I have a similar thing,” Jisung says, after a moment, and Minho looks up at him to see him staring at his drink, and, experimentally, he gives his hand a light squeeze. The corner of Jisung’s lips lifts up in a smile and he meets his eyes. “My friend—um, Changbin?—is graduating this year, too, and we’ve been friends and close and whatever since middle school, right? And we’ve been together the whole time since and now he’s moving away for college and I’m—very happy for him, but I just—kind of have the same worries as you?”

“Yeah,” Minho says, his voice low, “I—um, yeah.”

“So I get where you’re coming from,” Jisung says, “but I think—I mean, I think it should be fine? You’ve been friends with—um, with…?”

“Woojin,” Minho says.

“Oh,” Jisung’s eyes go wide, “You’ve been friends with Woojin since you were little?”

“Since elementary school,” Minho says, smiling, “we’re like—for me, he’s always kind of, um, been there, you know? He’s—um, he’s, like, my second brother, kind of, except a bit more down to earth than Seokjin and easier to talk to.”

Jisung hums in agreement, nodding, before he leans back, his brows furrowing. “Wait, you’re—Seokjin’s your brother?”

“Yeah,” Minho says, tilting his head, amused. “Didn’t you know?”

“I—no,” Jisung says, “Seokjin didn’t tell me and—well, you didn’t tell me, either! How was I supposed to know?”

“Literally everyone knows,” Minho says, “it’s not really kept a secret, you know. Maybe you’re just oblivious. Maybe you’re one working brain cell didn’t fire any—any action potentials, or whatever the fuck. I don’t know. I’m like, barely passing biology, with no thanks to neurology.”

Jisung smiles, huffing, “if you say so.”

“I do,” he says, shrugging his shoulders, and Jisung grins at him as he squeezes his hand again, his fingers tapping against his skin slowly.

“Anyway, what I wanted to say is,” Jisung says, looking up in thought, “um, you know, if you’ve been friends with him for such a long time and he’s this close to you, I don’t think he’s just going to, um, drop you? When he leaves for college.”

“I know,” Minho says, “it’s—I mean, I’m kind of worried abut that but it’s, it’s more of that everything will change, I guess? And him leaving is, in some way, a catalyst of that?” He snaps his fingers, “an enzyme, if we’re feeling biological.”

“Enzymes are only for chemical reactions,” Jisung says, still smiling wide. “You could talk to him? To ease your worries?”

“I could,” Minho agrees, “but it’s—I mean, I don’t want to worry him—or, um, something like that, at least. I—he must be very stressed, already—he _is_ very stressed already and I don’t want him to be any more stressed because of me.”

“Same hat,” Jisung says, nodding. His thumb stills for a moment before it skips over Minho’s knuckles again, rubbing them, and Minho swallows. “The thing is, I think it’s good for him, too? I’m sure his friendship with you is one of the things he worries about. A lot of the worries probably overlap and it might be good for the two of you to at least discuss it?”

“I don’t think he’s worried that I’ll go to college and leave him behind,” Minho says, snorting.

“No, but maybe he’s worried the contact between you two will get harder,” Jisung says, shrugging. “It’s—I mean, I talked a bit with Binnie, right? And it’s okay—we were both sad bitches and might have cried, but I do think it helped? I’m less worried about everything now and all, and he is, too.”

“I might have to fuck around and talk with him about it, then,” Minho says, sighing, and Jisung squeezes his hand. Minho picks up his drink, stirring it with the straw again.

“Okay, onto some lighter topics,” Jisung says and Minho bites back a smile, “speaking of Binnie and Woojin and whatnot, I thought maybe you’d like to, um, meet my friends? Those outside the volleyball team, I mean.”

“Oh,” Minho says.

In truth, it’s so easy to take this out of context, really, to think Jisung says this after they’ve been together for a bit, maybe, after a number of dates. It’s even easier to do it with the way Jisung is still holding his hand, his fingers moving against Minho’s skin, almost burning on it. It’s even easier to do with Minho’s heart beating too fast in his chest, with all the feelings Minho has flaring up again and making his head spin.

Minho blinks, clears his throat.

“I mean, it’s not a bad idea,” he says, because what else is he supposed to do? Say no? “We could do some official introductions, I guess.”

“We could do it after the game, on Saturday,” he says, grinning.

“After finals, you mean.”

“Well—yeah,” Jisung amends, though his grin doesn’t falter. “Regardless of whether we win or lose, Yukhei’s holding a party, right? I—well, even if we lose and Felix has to drag pissy baby Changbin there, they’ll both be there, and they—well, we could kind of get together with them and, um, yeah.”

“I do know Felix,” Minho says, “we’re bio buddies.”

“Right,” Jisung says, slowly, his eyes narrowing as he stares at Minho. “Um, but you don’t know Changbin, yeah?”

“I just know Woojin’s friends with Changbin,” Minho says, “I think Seungmin and Hyunjin might be as well, but I don’t really know him.”

“Well, you can meet him there, then,” Jisung says, brightening, “and I can meet Seungmin and Hyunjin!”

Minho narrows his eyes, thinking potentially of all the damage his friends could do. Seungmin’s safe—and Woojin probably, too, considering he has the most synapses out of all of them, but Hyunjin’s definitely a wild factor.

Minho _could_ try and convince Jeongin’s parents to let him tag along, but they’re not his biggest fans. If Jeongin were to tag along, though, he’d be distracting enough to let Minho not worry about the potential train wreck that could be their friends getting together.

He’ll have to think about it, definitely, and maybe enlist Woojin’s help in talking to Jeongin’s parents.

“Yeah,” he says, “it could be nice.”

.

Truth be told, it’s all nice—their little escapade after practice, the way Jisung returns to smiling at him brightly when he passes him in the halls, the way his hands graze his shoulders, the way he swings an arm around Minho’s shoulders and pulls him closer whenever they’re together. It’s all nice, the way Minho texts the group chat telling them about the afterparty on Saturday at Yukhei’s, that Jisung wants to meet them, and they tease him. It’s all nice, as long as Minho’s able to entertain the fantasy that Jisung’s into him, that Jisung returns his feelings.

It’s all nice, really, until Minho remembers Jisung’s straight and goes right back to sulking.

He tries to keep it to himself, because he doesn’t want to be coddled nor does he want anyone to particularly pick up on it—especially not Jisung—but it seems like Seungmin’s noticed, anyway, considering he drops by after practice on Friday and throws a pack of gummies at Minho.

“What’s this for?” He asks, letting his sports bag drop to the floor as he happily tears open the gummies, stuffing about half of them down his throat immediately. He offers the bag to Seungmin, who shakes his head, his nose twisted up in disgust.

“I’m good, thanks,” he says, “just thought I’d drop by before your game tomorrow, wish you luck and all.”

“Mhm,” Minho hums, swallowing. He grabs another fistful of the gummies. “I better see you on the bleachers tomorrow, or you’re losing the twitter mutual.”

“You don’t even follow me back on twitter,” Seungmin says.

“Yeah, but that’s because all you do is post pictures of your notes to boast about you studying!” Minho says, “I don’t go on twitter to feel bad about being a dumb bitch and not studying or doing my work, of course I unfollowed you.”

Seungmin rolls his eyes. “I will be at the game though, even if there’s nothing on the line,” he says, “you better bring back a trophy, you know. Make us proud. If you lose, I never want to see you again.”

“You forget it’s a team sport,” Minho says, “and I’m not even the most important player. I mostly just stand there and look pretty, I can’t get you a trophy just by doing that.”

“Then you’re clearly not trying hard enough,” Seungmin says, watching as Minho stuffs his mouth full of the gummies again, a vague frown on his face. “But, anyway, I wanted to talk with you, actually? We’ve been kind of just been passing each other this week, so…”

“It’s not my fault you take only advanced classes,” Minho says, stuffing the empty gummy pack into the pocket of his letterman jacket, “us dumb bitches deserve rights, too! We only have homeroom together and you’re gone half the time, so maybe if you made an effort this wouldn’t be happening.”

“You’re gone, too, idiot,” Seungmin says, grinning, and Minho just rolls his eyes as he turns to open his locker, jumping back in surprise when a bunch of papers fly out. “Hyunjin still hasn’t remembered his locker combination?”

“No,” Minho sighs even as he moves to pick up the papers, messily stacking them. He looks up to find Seungmin doing the same, albeit much neater. He’s smiling too, his gaze soft as he runs his fingers over Hyunjin’s signature on the papers, but Minho choses to ignore it. “I don’t think he ever will, really.”

“Can’t he get like, Woojin to get it from whoever has it? Your homeroom teacher, maybe?” Seungmin asks, “Hyunjin probably doesn’t even have to be the one to ask for it.”

“Honestly, I don’t think Hyunjin cares enough,” Minho says and Seungmin half-heartedly nods in agreement, taking hold of all the papers Minho thrusts his way without hesitating. “What did you want to talk about?”

“I wanted to check that you’re doing all right?” Seungmin says, watching as Minho shuffles around in his locker, trying to find his math textbook. He’s got a test in the upcoming week and he already knows he’s going to fail, but he might as well pretend he’ll try.

“I am, but thanks,” Minho says, grinning wide as he finds the math textbook. He pulls it out of the locker, letting it unceremoniously drop down to the floor, making Seungmin wince. “You shouldn’t worry about me. I’m not, like, twelve. Waste your time making sure Jeongin’s eating his fucking lunchables or whatever.”

“I’m almost certain that Woojin’s already doing that,” Seungmin says and Minho shrugs, because that’s probably true. Almost definitely true, actually. “I can worry about you, even if you’re older than twelve, you know? You’re still my friend.”

“Your friend who can and will take care of himself,” Minho says, taking Hyunjin’s assignments from Seungmin’s hands, dumping them back into his locker and quickly closing the door before they spill out. “Seriously, don’t worry about me. You’re just wasting your time.”

“You don’t have to be so independent all the time,” Seungmin says, looking pointedly at Minho. “It’s okay to not be okay, you know?”

“Do you know?” Minho asks, squatting down to stuff his math textbook into his bag, before he hoists the strap of the bag over his shoulder. It’s heavy and he winces as he stands up, his muscles still sore from practice. “You look like you haven’t slept in eight years.”

“Minho,” Seungmin says and Minho just tilts his head, raising his eyebrows at him. Seungmin stares him down, until he sighs. “God, fine, okay, I’ll drop it.”

“I was serious, though,” he says, as they start making their way down the hall, “have you even slept at all, lately?”

“A bit,” Seungmin says and Minho chews on his cheek as he eyes him. He looks a lot less put together than usual, has dark circles present under his eyes, and it’s a bit worrying, more than anything else. “I’m—everything’s coming to a close and I’m trying to manage it as best as I can and it only works out about half the time. But—it’s fine, I’ve got it all under control.”

“It doesn’t look like it,” Minho says. “Take care of yourself or something, yeah?”

“You’re barely one to speak,” Seungmin says and Minho shrugs noncommittally. “Anyway, um, I wanted to ask about Hyunjin, too? He’s—uh, well, we haven’t been talking and—it’s, it’s fine, I mean, but is he okay?”

“I think you should talk to him about that,” Minho says, “it’s—mmm, it’s not my place? And you know, communication is nice. It’s pretty sexy, from what I’ve heard.”

“Surprisingly, you might be right—”

“—I’m always right,” Minho says, indignant, “when have I ever been wrong?” Seungmin just raises his eyebrows at him and, okay, fair point. “Okay, God, I get it, I’m a dumbass.”

“Speaking of which,” Seungmin says, bumping his shoulder into Minho at the noise of protest he lets out, “how’s the whole, uh, situation with Jisung? Are you two still not, uh,” he gestures vaguely with his hand, “you know?”

“We’re _not_ still not, uh, you know,” Minho mocks him, amused. “It’s—um, well, we’re back to talking and being, you know, bros, I guess, which you would know if you kept up with the group chat.”

“Bros,” Seungmin repeats, rolling his eyes. “I can’t keep up with the group chat when you and Hyunjin send a million of messages about like, I don’t know, some gay bullshit.”

“You’re gay, too, loser,” Minho says, “you should be like, into it. Also, it’s _high quality_ gay bullshit, you homophobe.”

“Aren’t you still sending really bad Timothée Chalamet edits?”

“That’s a classic,” Minho waves a hand, “but, anyway. We’re talking again, being bros, homies, uhhh, just two dudes being bros, that sort of thing.”

“Sounds lovely,” Seungmin says and Minho nods. It—well, it does, in that awful, heterosexual way, but. “What’s the problem, then?”

“Huh?”

“The problem,” Seungmin repeats, as he pushes open the doors and lets Minho exit the school first, following. The air’s warm on his skin and it’s nice, helping soothe his worn muscles. “You do have a reason for all the moping and sulking around, no?”

“I’m—ugh, okay,” Minho says, taking a deep breath. “So like, the thing is, it’s—it’s really nice being friends with him, you know? Even if he is a filthy straightie and definitely deserves zero rights. And, obviously, I like him as a friend and prefer his company rather than—than lack thereof, I guess, but it’s. It’s so easy to imagine that, um, he likes me back, sometimes? Like, he always looks so excited when we talked, has this, like, embarrassingly wide smile, and this—this look in his eyes, as if he was, God, a little kid or something, and he holds my hand, and it feels so nice, and—overall, he’s so fucking affectionate, and it’s so easy to just—I don’t know.”

“You’re literally making me homophobic with this.”

“You asked!” Minho says, “what was I supposed to say?”

“You could have role-played a straightie and just finished after the first bit, but okay,” Seungmin says. “What are you going to do with, um, all that?”

“I mean,” Minho sighs, as he loops their elbows together and they walk towards his bus stop. “It’s—I mean, we’ve got the finals tomorrow, and then it’s just a couple of weeks before the whole thing ends, so.”

Seungmin frowns. “You’re just hoping to drop all contact?”

“Uh,” Minho scrunches up his nose, “I think that’s, that’s what it’s heading for? We’re just—we’re just volleyball team friends, you know? I don’t think—I don’t think Jisung sees me as someone close enough to keep up talking as much as we do now after I don’t join the team next year.”

“You could join the team again,” Seungmin says.

“Not the point,” Minho says, chewing on his cheek in thought. “It’s—I mean, I think you get what I mean, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” he nods, “but I don’t think that’s true? He seems to, um, care for you. And you obviously do, as well, so I don’t think letting it go and just, dropping all contact is your best idea?”

“What else is there to do?” Minho says, shrugging. “I—well, I really, really truly do appreciate him as a friend, but right now it’s just—it is, getting all my hopes up of something that can never happen because he’s straight, you know?”

“Maybe he’s not straight?” Seungmin suggests, tilting his head to the side, “he could be bi or pan or, like, queer, in general, you know. You could still have a, a chance.”

“Yeah, maybe, but he has a girlfriend anyway,” Minho says, sighing as he takes the time to check when his bus will arrive, because all he wants to do is go home, lie down on his bed, let himself rest before the game tomorrow and maybe feel sorry for himself a bit more. “I’m not going to like, try to ask him out or get with him while he’s in an actual relationship.”

Seungmin nods, half-heartedly, before he stops and narrows his eyes at Minho. “Wait,” he says, “who’s his girlfriend? I don’t—I don’t think you ever told me.”

“Haseul,” Minho says.

“Wait, he’s with Haseul? As in, Cho Haseul?” Seungmin says and Minho starts to nod, but he’s not done yet, “girls volleyball team leader Haseul? _That_ Haseul?”

Minho frowns. It’s—the same reaction Woojin had, now that he thinks about it, and—hm. “Yeah,” he says. “What’s so—so surprising about that?”

“I just thought—uh, never mind,” Seungmin shakes his head and presses his lips into a thin line, “I—I need to make sure of something? But I’ll get back to you on that.”

“Okay,” Minho says, dragging out the word as he narrows his eyes at Seungmin, before shrugging. “But, like, anyway. It’s—you know, either way, it’s a sucky situation.”

“Right,” Seungmin says. “I know you’re going to hate this and I hate yo flip your own advice on you but—and hear me out, here—talk to him, maybe? Figure it out a bit? Get some closure?”

“That’s the ugliest idea I’ve ever heard,” Minho says, “and doesn’t Hyunjin always say that Scorpios suck ass at communication? Who am I to prove him wrong?”

“Break through the mold and all that other inspirational bullshit,” Seungmin says. Minho rolls his eyes and crosses his arms, trying not to frown. “You care for him a lot, Minho, and I think he cares for you, as well. Even if not in the—not in the sense that you’d like.”

“No need to rub it in,” Minho says.

“That’s not what I’m doing,” Seungmin sighs, “what I’m trying to say is, maybe if you talk with him about it, tell him, you know, the truth, you two could get over this and you know, he could become someone really important to you and stay in your life even after junior year ends, after senior year, and so on.”

“Ugh, maybe,” Minho says, “but that’s such a loser move. What, am I going to laugh about having been head over heels for him _with him_ in a few years? Isn’t that even worse?”

“It’s not embarrassing,” Seungmin says, “it’s—okay, it’s me with—actually, I’m not going to say it, but it’s not embarrassing? I genuinely, seriously think that this could help you, you know? Your friendship, I mean.”

“I’d much rather ignore it,” Minho says.

“That’s more on-brand, yeah, but he means a lot to you, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Minho says, pausing to consider his options. It’s—Seungmin’s got some sort of point, maybe, but the thought of approaching Jisung and wearing his heart out on his sleeve makes him want to die.

On the other hand, though—this, this could ease everything between them, maybe? Could maybe make everything Minho feels around his heart stop squeezing it dry, give it some room to breathe, make him feel better.

“Ugh, hate to say this, but you might be onto something here,” Minho says, before his eyes catch onto his bus, which is rolling into a stop nearby. “Either way, I am a stranger to dealing with anything so we _are_ going to ignore it for now.”

Seungmin rolls his eyes. “That sounds about right.”

“Thanks,” Minho grins, “now, that’s my bus, and I’m not waiting thirty minutes for the next one, so I’ll see you tomorrow at the game, yeah? You better show up, you dweeb.”

“I will,” Seungmin says, smiling even as Minho reaches to pat his cheek, once, twice, before he turns and races for his bus.

“Gay rights!” He shouts just before he jumps on.

“Gay rights,” Seungmin echoes back as the doors close, and that’s that.

.

“Fucking shit, fuck, fuck, what the fuck,” Minho’s repeating like a mantra under his breath, stuffing everything he needs into his bag. He had to shoo Dori off of it, much to her annoyance, and now she was perched on his desk, looking down on him.

He probably deserved that.

A glance at the clock tells him he’s still got eight minutes before his bus leaves and he pats down his uniform, hoping to get rid of any creases. He was lucky enough that Seokjin took mercy on him, setting it to wash and then dry after Minho was too tired to do that himself after practice. Seokjin’d left it out in the bathroom for him to iron but because he overslept, he didn’t get the chance.

Still. It should be fine, as long as he makes it to his bus.

Minho zips up his bag, hoisting it over his shoulder. A quick check of his phone tells him it’s still dead and so he sighs as he leaves it by his bed, charging, and moves to scramble down the stairs. He’s got his wallet with his bus card in his letterman jacket downstairs and his shoes lined up by the door, and if he just grabs them, he could run out and so he clambers down the stairs, nearly toppling over, and—

“—you’re going to break your legs if you don’t slow down, dipshit,” Seokjin’s voice rings out, loud and clear, and Minho misses the last step, barely able to steady himself as his feet hit the floor.

“You’re still here?” He asks, his eyes wide and his mouth dropping open as Seokjin walks over to him, pats his uniform and frowns down at it, before sticking his fingers through Minho’s hair with no warning at all, shifting through it. “Aren’t you supposed to be working today?”

“I wasn’t about to miss your volleyball game,” Seokjin says, focused wholly on Minho’s hair, as if he hadn’t missed almost all of Minho’s previous games. He sets a few strands into place, ignoring the way Minho shifts uneasily under his touch. “You didn’t even dry _or_ brush your hair? This is a new low, Minho, even for you.”

“My bus is leaving in,” he glances towards the clock, “two minutes.”

“I’ll drive you there,” Seokjin says, off-handedly, finally meeting Minho’s eyes. “Go back upstairs, make yourself look like an actual human being. You’ve got twenty minutes before we’ve got to leave. Thirty if we push it and I go over the speed limit. Make of that what you will.”

Minho off-handedly nods, stumbling back towards the stairs, before he catches sight of Soonie perched on the counter, staring at the both of them. He twists his lips into a frown, “why’d you wait until now to tell me? You really couldn’t have told me, like, before? Or even woken me up?”

“I thought you’d left earlier,” Seokjin shrugs, walking back to the counter and picking up his coffee. He drags his hand over Soonie, too, who seems to enjoy it greatly. _Traitor,_ Minho thinks as he glares at her and hopes she somehow gets the message. “I literally just found out you didn’t make it to your bus or meeting or whatever when Jisung called me, like nine minutes ago.”

“Jisung—he called you?” Minho gapes at him, a moment away from sinking down and holding his face in his hands.

“Yeah,” Seokjin says, “he was worried, too, which like, shit.”

“Since when does he even have your number?”

“Since he’s my employee?” Seokjin says, shaking his head. “Now, come on, we don’t have all day. Hurry up or you’re not going to make it to the game.”

“I’m ready to leave,” Minho huffs out, “just let me eat something and we can go.”

“At least blow dry your hair so you don’t get sick,” Seokjin says, “and I can make you breakfast, if you’d like. Do you want scrambled eggs or, mm, whatever leftovers we have in the fridge?”

“You know how to cook more than that,” Minho whines and Seokjin sends him a look.

“Yeah, and I have better things to do than cook for you,” Seokjin says. “Do you want my scrambled eggs or leftovers or do you want to make yourself toast or whatever?”

Minho pouts. “Eggs, please,” he says.

Seokjin rolls his eyes, though he turns to pull open the fridge anyway, and Minho bounds back upstairs, narrowly missing Dori on his way. He reaches down to pet her head softly before he disappears inside the bathroom.

He gets the chance to think as he blowdries his hair, his hand shuffling through it every so often, and, almost involuntarily, the corners of his lips tug down in a frown. Everything seems to finally sink in, now. In forty minutes, he’s going to be playing with his team at finals— _finals,_ which is crazy, in and of itself, and makes the nerves under his skin buzz, makes his hands shake, almost, make his knees feel weak if he thinks about it for more than a minute. It still feels a bit unreal, really, like it hasn’t settled down in his bones just yet, like any second he’s going to wake up and realize he’s dreamt the whole thing up, that they never qualified for finals or that they never made it past the prelims or, in a particularly cruel twist of fate, that he never got into the team in the first place.

Minho lets his eyes fall closed as he switches the blowdryer off, unplugging it and setting it down the counter. He cards his fingers through his hair, frowning when he ends up with a fringe falling over his eyes. There’s not much he can do—not much that’s worth doing, maybe, before the game—so he resigns to pulling a cap over his head.

It’s still early when he leaves the bathroom, so he slinks into his room, pushing the door open. He lets his eyes survey the room till they land on Doongie, who’s fast asleep in his bag.

His bag, which he needs for today and would have forgotten.

“Oh, baby,” he says as he falls to his knees next to the bag and Doongie opens her eyes, narrowing them at him. He pets her head, smiling at how she preens to the touch, before his hands snake under her and lift her off the bag.

She stares at him, jumping up onto his desk and meowing at him, indignantly, making him roll his eyes.

“You have an actual bed to sleep in, you rascal,” he says, as he turns to shift through the contents of his bag. “Sleep there, not in my bag. Or at least admit you just want attention, you attention whore.”

She meows at him again.

“Go ask Seokjin for food,” he says. He tries to go through his mental list fo what he needs to grab, shuffling for a change of clothes and whatnot, but maybe he should grab some extra things, too?

He’s so focused that he doesn’t notice Doongie meow again before she slinks off the desk and forces her head into his elbow, still wanting attention. He looks at her, immediately feeling himself go soft, and lifts his arm to let her climb onto his lap.

“I’m in a hurry,” he says, even as he scratches under her chin. “I can’t use up all the time I have scratching you right now,” he says, even as he drags his fingers over her fur. “Doongie, come on,” he says, even as he lets her settle further in his lap and makes no move to get her off.

He resigns to being late to the finals because of Doongie hogging his knees, until he makes notice of his phones incessant buzzing and unceremoniously pushes her off.

“Sorry, Doongie,” he says, half-heartedly, reaching for his phone. He yawns as he scrolls through the notifications—there’s countless ones, from the group chat with his friends to that of the volleyball team, to a bunch of private messages from each of his friends and at least half of the volleyball team.

_im big dumb and overslept but ill be there in like thirty minutes or something,_ he sends to the group chat with his team, ignoring all the other messages they left as he clicks out of the chat to find the one with his friends. It’s mostly filled with Hyunjin panicking through keysmashes, emojis and atrocious photos, all heavily edited and with bold text taking up half the screen. He rolls his eyes even as he types out some half-hearted message of reassurance that he’s alive, before shutting his phone.

He holds it between his hands, closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath.

It’s about five more minutes of shuffling around his room before he goes downstairs, his bag hoisted over his shoulder, and fifteen before he and Seokjin lock up the apartment and head down to the garage, though not without Seokjin’s complaints.

“Are you sure you’ve got everything you need?” Seokjin asks, sounding more tired than anything else. “I’m not driving back here if you forgot anything.”

“I have everything,” Minho mutters as he climbs into the car after throwing his bag on the backseat. “Do you have the address? If not, I can get it from the team—”

“—I have the address,” Seokjin says, reaching up to adjust the rearview mirror. “I checked it yesterday.”

“You did?”

“Yeah,” Seokjin says, “how else was I going to get to your game?”

Minho shrugs, hiding a smile as he turns towards the window. “Thanks,” he says, finally, “for, um, driving me, to the game. And coming to it, too.”

Seokjin eyes him for a moment before he pulls out of the parking spot, slowly driving the car out of the garage.

“You don’t have to thank me,” he says, “I have to go, make sure you’re not completely destroying the legacy I left behind.”

“Didn’t your team lose every game?” Minho asks, snickering at the affronted expression Seokjin takes on, his brows skewed together comically so and his mouth stretched awkwardly across his face. “I don’t remember you winning any finals—or going to any, actually.”

“My team didn’t lose every game,” Seokjin scowls, his fingers tapping across the steering wheel as he turns it. “We weren’t _bad._ We almost won finals during my senior year, you know that.”

“But you didn’t,” Minho says, leaning away when Seokjin swats at him.

“We got second place,” Seokjin says, “it’s not the worst, considering everything.”

“I’ll try my hardest to upstage you,” Minho promises and Seokjin glances at him, the corners of his lips pulling into a smile, before he turns back to the road. “We’ll bring that trophy home, just so I can rub it in your face.”

“You better,” Seokjin says, grinning, before he moves to flick through the songs on the radio. Minho opens his mouth to respond, before his phone buzzes and he’s reminded of all the messages everyone sent him.

Minho opens his phone and goes through all the messages the volleyball players sent him, leaving them on read (except Jisung, to whom he sends a cat sticker), because they already know what’s up from the group chat. He pops in there for a moment, too, giving a quick update ( _ill be there in ten minutes tops_ ) and angry-reacting Johnny’s rolled eyes emoji that he’d sent seven minutes prior. He scrolls through the group chat with his friends, ignoring Hyunjin’s frantic messages and sending a bunch of emojis to distract them, before he goes into his private chats with each of them.

Hyunjin, as he expected, had left too many messages, and Minho can’t help but smile as he skims through them. Jeongin had left just a few, though he was evidently more confused than anything, and Woojin sent only five, all of which were short and to the point. Seungmin had sent him a couple as well—which was surprising, considering Seungmin and he talk privately once in a blue moon.

_mnhgnmh where are you? your team looks very worried and keep asking about you i hope you’re okay_ and _uhh btw i have something important to tell you tho its not an emergency or anything but text me asap xoxo_ stare up at Minho from his screen and he frowns, his brows pulling together. He shuts his phone, rests his forehead against the car window, and decides whatever urgent news Seungmin has for him can wait.

.

Seungmin, apparently, has a different opinion on the matter; he’s waiting for Minho with Woojin outside of the school where the finals are held. Seokjin takes one look at him and sighs, pulling Minho in for a quick hug and wishing him good luck before he leaves the two of them alone.

“What’s good, my dudes,” Minho greets Seungmin and Woojin with, biting back a smile at the way Seungmin recoils and the way Woojin furrows his brows, both moving away from Minho’s hands when he tries to touch their shoulders to truly up the bro factor. “You wanted to talk about something?”

“Yeah,” Seungmin says, "you were supposed to text me back as soon as possible.”

“I’m talking to you now,” Minho argues, “isn’t that good enough?”

“What Seungmin was trying to say is we’re glad you’re alive and well and made it in time for your game,” Woojin says, rolling his eyes, “and Seungmin, please get to it quickly, yeah? I still don’t know why you dragged me out here.”

“I can’t have a big reveal one on one with Minho, that’s pointless,” Seungmin says, then twists his fingers together. “Also I didn’t want to stand out here alone, because who knew when Minho would arrive.”

“Big thanks,” Minho says, before clapping twice, his eyebrows raised at Seungmin. “Come on, now, hurry up. I want to get there before the game actually begins.”

“Okay,” Seungmin says, “so, um, it’s about Jisung?”

“Okay, and?” Woojin prompts, more exasperated with every minute that passes, and Minho has the share the sentiment.

“I’m getting to it,” Seungmin says, pausing for a moment, two, three, before he snaps both his hands at Minho, making finger guns (accompanied by Woojin’s groans in the background), and says, “Haseul’s not his girlfriend.”

Minho makes a strained noise somewhere from the back of his throat, completely missing the bewildered look Woojin sends Seungmin as he tries to process the information.

“What,” he says, because his brain fails him in trying to make sense of what Seungmin said. “Did they break up? Oh, fuck, if they broke up, we losing finals, babey—shit, I hope Jisung’s okay, God—”

“—what are you talking about?” Woojin asks Seungmin. “They—they’re together, aren’t they?”

“You don’t understand,” Seungmin says. “She was never his girlfriend.”

“What,” Minho and Woojin say, in perfect unison.

“They were never together,” Seungmin continues, “she’s dating Kahei.”

“They were never—what?” Woojin manages to stammer out, sounding about as confused as Minho feels. “But—Iasked Jisung, like, a couple of weeks ago if they were and he said yes, I—why would he lie about that?”

“He wasn’t lying,” Seungmin says, risking a glance at Minho, whose mouth keeps opening and closing. “I—okay, I messaged Haseul? Because we’re kind of friends—or, I mean, we have physics together, right, and so I thought maybe—”

“—get to the point,” Minho says, “please?”

“Okay, okay,” Seungmin says, “I—yesterday, you told me Jisung’s girlfriend was Haseul and I had been convinced that she had a girlfriend. So I messaged her, asking if she and Jisung were together and it’s like, this whole thing?”

“This whole thing?”

“I mean,” Seungmin says, “they joke about it or whatever, but bottom line is, they’re both as gay as can be. By which I mean, whatever Jisung told you that made you think he was dating Haseul was not true—or I don’t know, meant to be a joke, but your two brain cells didn’t understand that, and yes, he is very gay.”

“I,” Minho says, squinting at Seungmin as his mind is still taking ages to process everything. “He’s—he’s not straight?”

“No,” Seungmin says, “he’s not straight.”

Minho gapes at him.

He thinks back to what Jisung told him, a good few weeks ago, when they were on their way back from one of their games. If he’s—if he’s not straight, that made every assumption Minho took away from that not true, would make everything null, would mean that—would mean that Minho wasn’t project, maybe, when he thought Jisung returned his feelings.

It would mean that, maybe, Jisung returned his feelings, for all this time.

“Oh, fuck,” Minho says and Woojin nods off-handedly, his eyes narrowed in thought. “Oh—oh, fuck. I’m about to run out into heavy traffic. Fuck. Do you think this—do you think he’s, um, do you think that means he’s gay for me, then?”

“I—it could,” Seungmin says and Minho worries his bottom lip between his teeth, almost bouncing in his place. He thinks back to the way Jisung looked at him that afternoon, the way he moved closer, the way he looks at him, almost half the time, his eyes soft and his mouth curved into a smile, and—and the morning before semis, when he tried to offer Minho his letterman jacket.

Was he—was he asking him out, then?

It feels almost too good to be true, Minho thinks, as all the nerves and hope and everything he stored for Jisung springs back to life, as if he didn’t try to bury and forget it at all. The hope seizes his heart, wraps itself around it, and he thinks of what it would be like to hold Jisung’s hand and know that they’re both in it romantically, this time, to kiss him, softly, to go on dates for coffee or to the movies or to the park or anywhere, really, to be able to confess his feelings and not feel embarrassed of them in the slightest.

“You won’t know until you ask him,” Woojin says, his voice soft, kind, and he glances down at his watch. “You’ve still got a few minutes before the game, so…”

“Is he, is he in the gym? Did you see him?” Minho asks and the two of them nod at him.

“Yeah,” Woojin says, “he was there before, with the whole team. You’ll see them as soon as you enter, I’m sure. Now, go.”

Minho looks at them—Seungmin springs his thumbs up in encouragement—and so he opens his mouth, closes it, nods back at them, and rushes towards the doors. He vaguely hears them yell, “good luck!” but it falls deaf to his years as he can almost hear his blood rushing through his body, his heart going so, so fast, as his nerves won’t be stilled. It’s—it’s, God, he doesn’t even know.

He finds his way to the gym after a long time—maybe he should have waited to go back with Woojin and Seungmin—but fortunately, there’s a delay in the game anyway. His eyes find Jisung quickly, holding the team in a huddle, and his head feels dizzy but he’s made up his mind, now, and he’s going to do it, he’s going to talk to him, he’s going to confess.

“Lee Minho!” Jeongguk yells—the first to notice him—and the team erupts in shouts, acting like children, but Minho barely notices, instead watching as a smile spreads over Jisung’s face.

He can barely think, can barely form words, even as he lets some of his teammates clap him on the back in some heterosexual display of friendship. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he manages, finally, “sorry for being so late. I know you all are basically useless without me.”

Johnny scoffs somewhere in the background, but Jaehyun takes the chance to flick Minho’s cap, grinning, and Minho barely feels annoyance flare in his chest.

“Thank God you made it then,” Jaehyun says and Jeongguk nods wildly from his place next to him, “and we’re not useless.”

“Of course,” Minho says, “anything for my team.”

Yukhei pats his shoulder, sending him a grin, and Mark laughs, loud, and this—this is why Minho joined the team, he thinks, even as he maneuvers his way through them till he gets to Jisung, who’s still smiling, so, so softly, so genuinely, and Minho just wants to spend the rest of his life making him smile like that more.

“I’m really happy you made it,” Jisung says, his voice low, and everything other than him fades into the background. “I was, um, really worried there, for a second.”

“So I’ve been told,” Minho says, his fingers lightly reaching for Jisung’s wrist. He taps it, once, twice, before he says, “um, I know this is kind of sudden and that we don’t have much time, but can we talk?”

Jisung’s brows pull together before he nods, slowly. “I—um, yeah, sure, just let me tell someone.”

Minho smiles at him, letting go off his wrist and watching as he moves to Yukhei, muttering something Minho doesn’t hear. Yukhei looks between the two of them before he grins, flashing them two thumbs-up and Minho wastes no time in dragging Jisung out to the little hallway.

“So,” Jisung says. Minho’s fingers are still wrapped around his wrist and Minho realizes, belatedly, that he has no idea what he wants to say or how he wants to say it, at least. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Um, oh, fuck,” Minho says and Jisung huffs, laughter on his breath, “I—um, God, there’s that party Yukhei’s holding after this, right? Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jisung says, still looking more amused than anything. Minho wants to deck the smile off his face—or kiss it off, maybe, and the mere thought of it makes him want to curl his fingers, but he settles on lightly tapping his fingers against Jisung’s wrist. “What about it?”

“I was—um, I thinking maybe, uh,” Minho says. He remembers the morning before semifinals and—and if this is what Jisung meant, maybe he’ll understand it now. He takes a deep breath before he blurts out, “wear my jacket to it? My letterman jacket, I mean.”

Jisung stares at him. He blinks once, twice, and Minho’s fingers still on his wrist. This was a bad, completely horrible idea, and he wants to shrivel up and die, to sink under the earth, to disappear and move to Alaska, maybe, or to the middle of the Pacific Ocean and never show up again, to—

“—um,” Jisung starts, finally, and Minho’s eyes snap to his. He looks a bit unsure and Minho wants to reach out and smooth the crease in between his brows with his thumb. “I thought you didn’t like me like that.”

“And I thought you were straight, so clearly we’re both dumb bitches and got something wrong,” Minho says, the words spilling out of his mouth in near relief, and Jisung opens his mouth, leaning forward, only looking more confused.

“Wait, what?”

“I’ll—um, we’ll talk about it, later, okay?” Minho says. Jisung’s still shaking his head, looking more confused than anything, so he adds, “just—if you’d like, you could wear my, my jacket. And I’d wear yours.”

Jisung blinks at him, again, processing his words, before he smiles, softly. He lightly takes Minho’s hands in his, drags his thumb over his skin.

“I would,” Jisung says, his voice low, quiet, only loud enough for Minho to hear. “Like it, I mean.”

“Okay,” Minho says, “I’d like it as well. And, um, for clarification,” he clears his throat, feeling a bit awkward, “that was me, uh, confessing. My feelings. For you. In case it wasn’t clear.”

Jisung laughs. “It was,” he says, squeezing Minho’s hand and Minho tells his heart to pipe the fuck down when it won’t stop pounding against his ribs. He’s content with just staying there, for as long as they can, in the comfortable silence that envelopes them, until Jisung says, “what would you do if we kissed in the middle of the volleyball court?”

“We’re not in the middle of the volleyball court,” Minho points out, ignoring how he can feel his cheeks flush.

“God, fine,” Jisung says, rolling his eyes, “what would you do if we kissed in the hallway leading up to the volleyball court?”

Minho worries his bottom lip between his teeth, pretends to think about it. “I’d kiss you back.”

“That’s already a given,” Jisung says, his voice a bit unsteady and Minho wonders whether his heart is beating as fast as his. “It’s not what would you do if _I kissed you_ but what would you do if _we kissed_ , so you’re already kissing me back. There’s no question about it.”

Minho rolls his eyes. Jisung is completely and utterly insufferable.

“Ask me again,” he says, biting back his smile.

“What would you do if we kissed in—”

“—not the exact same question, you loser,” Minho says, pushing a hand against Jisung’s chest lightly. “Rephrase it, dumbass.”

“How am I supposed to—oh,” Jisung says. “What would you do if _I_ kissed you in the hallway leading up to the volleyball court?”

“I’d kiss you back,” Minho repeats and Jisung lets go off his hands to softly cup his cheeks between his palms, smoothing his thumb over Minho’s skin. Jisung leans forward, leans up, too, and kisses him, softly, and Minho as promised, kisses him back.

If only Minho hadn’t wanted to claim the title of the dumbest bitch alive so much, they could have had this weeks ago, he realizes. He could have kissed Jisung way before their game on finals, could have held his hand and gone on multiple dates instead of whining in his room about his (not actually) unrequited feelings. He could have spent so much more time with Jisung instead of the two of them needlessly pushing each other away.

He could have, he could have, he could have—all the possibilities roam free in his head, and yet he smiles as he pulls away, resting his forehead against Jisung’s. He feels his heart flutter to a stop in his chest, and he thinks that there’s no place he’d rather be.

Of course, Jisung has to go ahead and ruin it.

“We should probably get back,” Jisung says, even as his eyes drag down to Minho’s lips once more. He intertwines their fingers together, squeezes Minho’s hand, “before they all clown us for leaving to, um, be gay, I guess.”

“We could still be gay some more,” Minho suggests with a smile and Jisung grins right back at him.

“I am the captain, though,” Jisung says, sighing. There’s still a smile hidden somewhere in his words and his eyes are still soft when he looks at Minho, his fingers still warm around Minho’s.

Minho thinks he could get used to this.

(He could definitely get used to his, he concludes, after they win their game—claiming the title as champions for the third year in a row—and Jisung keeps Minho close, holding his hand, after Jisung holds him close at the party at Yukhei’s, for which they swapped their letterman jackets as promised, after he introduces Minho as his boyfriend to his friends and Minho does the same with him to his friends.

It’s—Minho feels like he’s on top of the world, now, watching Jisung, his profile outlined in a harsh, bright yellow from the lights in the garden, his hand still in Minho’s. He knows Hyunjin and all his other friends will tease him for everything, for how quick he’d been to believe Jisung was straight, for how quick he’d been to ask him out afterwards.

He knows, can anticipate all their jokes, too, but all of that fades into nothing when Jisung turns to smile at him and lightly kiss the corner of his mouth, his voice low as he suggests the park for their first date and Minho can sense everything he feels for Jisung course through his body at the mere suggestion. He squeezes Jisung’s hand, murmurs out a, “sure,” and kisses him.

What he doesn’t say is: _everywhere would be fine with you,_ but he thinks Jisung understands it, anyway, with the way he smiles at him, soft and caring and so, so terribly affectionate, and Minho knows he looks at him in the exact same way, and, for once, he doesn’t mind being so incredibly see-through.)

**Author's Note:**

> hope u enjoyed !!!! 
> 
> come say hi on [twitter](https://twitter.com/loonabeomgyu)!!!
> 
> there will be a sequel to this at some point in the form of a hyunmin oneshot that will wrap up the storylines that . were not wrapped here and will also be gay so like. keep an eye out for that !!


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